The Journey of a Growing Family

On a more sober note than usual........

I cannot help but also document this part of our ever growing, changing journey, for if I failed to document this it would leave a huge portion of our life out of this interesting stretching and growing spiritual journey the Lord is always walking us down. I hesitate to post this due to my own thoughts running wild. But I find comfort in what the Lord is teaching both Brad and I through this and what we are coming to embrace as a result of it. I have found through this that the love for our children and the true gift, the very blessings, that they are has only increased and begun to be revealed. And the understanding of His word and His precise timing is only becoming clearer to both of us.

"Don't you see that children are God's best gift?
The fruit of the womb His generous legacy?
Like a warrior's fistful of arrows are the children of a vigorous youth.
Oh, how blessed are you parents
with your quivers full of children!
Your enemies don't stand a chance against you;
You'll sweep them right off your doorstep!"
Ps. 127:3-5

"All you who fear God, how blessed you are!!
How happily you walk on His smooth straight road!
You worked hard and deserve all you've got coming.
Enjoy the blessing! Revel in the goodness!
Your wife will bear children as a vine bears grapes,
your household as a lush vineyard,
the children around your table as fresh as young olive shoots.
Stand in awe of God's 'Yes'.
Oh, how He blesses the one who fears God!"
Ps 128:1-4






But our sweet newest little addition, sweet Gavin, is now 13 wks old. Brad and I just recently really really came to the point where we are at peace with letting the Lord control the timing of each and every baby. Our heads and hearts have always been of the mindset that He is in control of how many we have but the timing of a new baby has always been a bit of a shock each and every time we get a positive.....especially as they have just gotten increasingly closer together with the last few babies. It seems to be a bit of a contradictory statement to say we have given over to Him the number of children we have and will gladly accept each and every new one excitedly but then say we have struggled giving over the timing of when we have them. But it is true and it is our personal journey and walk through this area of our life together.

The opposition to this is quite strong in some and we have faced walls of resistance with certain friends and family, and onlookers can amazingly be quite outspoken also, as we have learned in this comical and diverse world of opinionated people. As always, we have the uncalled for comments when we go out but we also have the admiration and complete awe of others. And this is a bit of a side note, but it makes it all so very worthwhile and is a continual boost and reminder of what it is God is accomplishing in my life, Brad's and the children's. But as we ate dinner at Cici's the other night with Mother I noticed a lady just staring and then staring and then staring some more. I found it hard to stifle the sarcastic edge within me, as I have grown so used to rude, opinionated looks and/or comments. About ready to retort with something if she made a comment she finally came forward as her family rose to leave. She approached our table and asked the usual, "Are they all your's?" I looked around at my good looking, well behaved, little bunch and said with pride, "Yes, every one of them." She went on to say, "I've been watching you every since you came in and I just could not believe it. I wanted you to know that they are the most well behaved, well mannered group of children I have ever seen. And they are sooooo beautiful. I'm still just in shock over having watched them all. Are they always this well behaved?" Ummmmmm........nothing like being put on the spot. Usually I would've laughed it off and replied with a very humorous comment about how this is a miracle day for behavior but the Lord has been working within me and convicting me of what I say about the children in front of them and even away from them. It is my job as their mom to praise them and bring out their very best assets and not run them down or lightheartedly tease about their shortcomings. So, grasping at words, I finally smiled and said, "Well, I'll just say that the training ground is our home and so when we do get out they have learned their manners well. I think everybody has their days but we just use it as a learning opportunity." I struggled with not wanting to make this woman feel like we are the whole "myth of the perfect family" thing since we fall far from that but I also felt I needed to praise my children and not bring to light their imperfections in front of a stranger. I know when I see larger families than our's and they are all lined up perfectly, including their millions of little toddlers, I feel like asking the same as this woman had because I feel that never in my life will my family's 1st impression ever live up to that. So, in an effort to keep it real and down to earth but not provide comic relief at the expense of the children I just stated that they are trained at home to make outings more enjoyable for everyone. Anyway, I can live on small amounts of praise for months and the children grinned from ear to ear after the woman walked away. And I learned not to jump to my own conclusions so swiftly over what is going through people's heads as they stare!!!

Alright........bunny trails. Back to the main point.

As Brad and I have continued on in our personal journey we have grown in many ways and we have come to embrace the gift of our own sweet, little...or not so little....family and how God has blessed us........especially when so many others struggle with opposing spouses or wombs that, for whatever reason, God did not choose to open or wombs that have opened only to have closed too soon or even children that were given but taken away too soon or born with sicknesses that we have been mercifully spared. We have both realized how absolutely incredibly, overwhelmingly blessed we are to have each other and to have our incredible children. There is nothing in the world that I would rather do than to hold and comfort and love on these amazing little people that teach me something new about life each and every day of their lives. In coming to discover this within us Brad and I have learned that other opinions, the negative feedback and comments from well meaning....or not so well meaning people, at times.....have to be taken with a grain of salt and, a bunch of the time, completely thrown out the window when we are walking where we know we should be and in obedience to what the Lord has laid on our hearts.




My house is a bit chaotic and the children are all relatively pretty young. They do have attitudes that have to be dealt with and they do have to be told more than once to do something and they do throw fits at times and they do get into a TON of stuff. People can, at times, look at our crazy, chaotic life and make assumptions based on what they would feel if they were living our lives. We have both come to realize that this is not out of disdain for our family and the way we run things but out of the fact that God has not given them the grace to deal with what He has given us incredible amounts of grace to do. Just as I cannot imagine living through some things other people have been forced to deal with in their lives others cannot imagine how in the world we cope with our growing crew.




Through this we have come to a new understanding of what it is to be committed to the Lord in this area. A couple of weeks ago I begin to get sick at very certain points throughout the day and once I started to take note I began to realize many very familiar symptoms. Symptoms that almost unnerved me. I lived in some trepidation for awhile before I asked for encouragement from other supportive families that have walked down this road. Then I took a pregnancy test.

It was negative. I am still getting extremely sick in the afternoons and I stay tired, which have never been issues unless I am pregnant. But I am taking the negative test result as truth and if this continues will test again in a few weeks. But through this the Lord has really taught me some valuable lessons about where we stand, what I confessed and what I assumed He would do. I am just using this time to draw closer to the Lord and dig deeper about these convictions and this walk we are coming to fully embrace. More than anything I have seen in myself through this that I was not truly committed to what I felt Him calling us to carry out. I had expectations of what I thought He would do. I was not totally submitted to His will based on the way I thought He would choose to work with our submission in this area. I am learning what it is to turn absolutely everything over, including even my ideas and expectations of what His will is. After I got the negative test results there was a surprising amount of disappointment I felt instead of the relief I expected it would bring. I absolutely love this mothering journey and each and every gift we have been so blessed with. It's funny to me because even after 7 children we are still so new and still drawing closer to the heart of God in our journey in this area.


It's just one of those things where I am beginning to get up each morning and pray, "Thank you Lord for each and every one of these miraculous blessings. I canot imagine life without them. I overwhelmingly love them and embrace them and even the ones still yet to come. I whole heartedly accept the ones not even here yet that you long to give us and I wait with expectation for your exact timing." When I prayed that for the 1st time, as I laid in the bed and worried over what peeing on a stick might reveal, I felt chills come all over me and the excitement overcome me realizing what surprises are still in store for us. I cannot even begin to imagine what we would've missed had we chosen not to walk down this amazing path the Lord has taken us down. Had we chosen to stay in our comfort zone and not heeded the conviction of what we felt in our hearts there is so much that we would've missed and so many blessings in life we would've chosen to turn down. And I mean blessings more than just children....blessings of our finances, blessings of provision, blessings of incredible lessons of faith, trust and hope, blessings of housing to fit our big family, blessings of vehicles, even the blessing of twins. My heart leaps when I think of my 2 little growing miracles. Had we chosen to stop at 3 we would've never been given the gift of raising multiples. He waits to bless us in every area of our lives when we are fully submitted to His will...whether it be the number of children we have or what we eat or even what we desire or where we even live, be it around the block or 10 states away from our current location.


When I again prayed the same prayer of thanksgiving over our children this morning the same feelings swept over me and my heart began to beat a little faster as I began to realize how absolutely incredible it is to know that God Himself planned the exact timing of each baby. Not me taking over with my "schedule" or preconceived ideas of what life should be. It truly is God in all of His infinite wisdom planning these little lives for a great and mighty purpose in His Kingdom at a very specific time for a very specific purpose. How incredible it is to know that Gavin was born precisely on the day that God wanted Him here and not what my impatience or fear brought on.....not even my desire to have him here as a miracle 7/7/07 #7 baby. Because I know there is nothing more incredible or precise in the world than God's exact timing. The Bible is too full of exact, precise numbers to think that I just happened to have him on a certain day. And the same holds true for the number of children we are given. I know more now than ever that it is not due to my body just having happened to have popped out 7 or 10 or even 14 eggs in my ovulating years that happened to turn into a baby but that it was by His very ordained purpose for what He wants to accomplish in His kingdom through our family. What an absolute blessing to be used as a vessel He is pouring through. What a blessing to allow Him to use my body....how blessed and humbling it is to be considered worthy enough to be used by Him and considered trustworthy enough to entrust these precious lives to Brad and me. In the multiples world I have seen so many parents crying out for children. Most finally sought fertility meds and had their 2 precious babies and cannot afford to try again for more. And so many can have no children at all in that world. They try and try for years with no results. And here we are blessed with our 2 boys that we were just so freely given (along with 5 other children as well!!!!). We were in the store the other day and the check out lady looked at our crew longingly and said she was only ever to have her 3 girls who are all naturally spaced 5 yrs apart. She never had another and she longed for a huge family of 10 or 11 kids. I think of these things and then I realize that a new baby a few months too "early" for me is nothing in the overall picture of God's purpose for what He has created them to accomplish in His exact timing. He is such a precise God. My children are a blessing to me...even when they show up a little too soon for my comfort!!! LOL!