we answer why

Tuesday, September 12th, 2006 at 1:31 pm

It is excruciatingly pleasant to be the mother ship (as my dear husband calls me) of our 5 little DNA combinations. They are gifts, rewards, and completely adorable and we are praying for many more children before God chooses for us to be finished growing our family. Years ago we decided to give the child bearing part of our lives completely up to God. We put it in His hands to do with us what He wills. We knew He wouldn’t give us more than we could handle and we had faith that He only wanted out happiness so who better to control our child bearing years than our loving God?

But wait!
Our kids were coming too close together! We had vacations to plan, military moves to make, money to save or spend, and other more selfish wants. God wasn’t making this easy and we faulted in our original decision to leave this in God’s hands, if only for a short period of time.
We’ll admit that at times this has been hard for us. And when our youngest child, Ben, came much sooner than we had expected, we decided that after he was born we wouldn’t make the mistake of trusting God to work on our timing. I repeat that again, we wanted and somewhat expected God to work around our wants and needs and not to proceed with what He wanted for us. For many months we were quite selfish, and without admitting it outloud, after Ben was born we decided (more me than my husband) that God didn’t know what was best in this area of our lives and we took control of it into our own hands.
I don’t know what we were thinking because we look at Ben, now 18 months, and wonder why we ever thought he was bad timing. Had God asked us if we would like another baby so soon we would have told him “no thanks, we would like to wait a bit longer”. Watching Ben grow up has showed us how very wrong we were and how very right God was and how He knew our hearts so much better than we ever knew them ourselves. We had no idea what we wanted or needed. My husband and I are blessed so much more when we let God take control of our lives. Our cup is so full that it is spilling over and our children are soaking up the spill because they are so thirsty for what my husband and I have.

My point is we learned that when we feel a conviction from God to run with it. We have to let go of what it is we are holding on to. Whether it is watching TV or just a specific program or movie, hanging out with certain friends, accepting or leaving a job, letting God take control of our finances, having children, or anything else God is convicting us about, we have to just let it go and trust Him to know what is best for us. Sometimes it is hard and sometimes we stumble, however, by giving our heart to God and letting Him work in and for us there is a peace that surrounds us that is unexplainable. Our family notices it, our friends desire it, and we feel a contentment like never before.