I remember conversations with some of my best girlfriends several years ago, after we were all newly married. "How many kids do you want?" "We want 5 or 6." "We want 4." "We want 2." I was always the one on the lower end. I was so surprised by how many children they all wanted. By no means was it because I didn't want children or didn't think they were a blessing. Quite the contrary. I have always wanted to be a mother, in fact, I have always felt it was something I was born to do.
I think it was because I had life all "planned out" in my mind. I had big dreams and even dreams of what we would do for God. My husband and I had both been doing foreign mission work since we were teenagers. It's a huge passion of ours. In my mind, I couldn't imagine loading a bunch of kids on an airplane and traveling thousands of miles into developing or third world countries. It seemed like more than the average 2.5 children would put a bit of a damper on that passion.
Fast forward into the future a bit and we had one baby girl, then two, then three, then [gasp] FOUR baby girls. What surprise was in the air. : ) For us, for our families and for my girlfriends who had always heard me giggle at their dreams of multiples. It was like I was the turtle in the "race" and came around the corner so fast that I passed the whole team up. Here I was, the one with FOUR children before any of us could blink.
My husband and I sometimes laugh, almost asking ourselves how this happened (don't worry, we have it figured out). It's been so amazing that our "plan" didn't work out exactly how we expected. Having these precious girls in our lives has been the most amazing experience we could possibly imagine.
Oh, about the traveling. Two of them have touched their feet on foreign soil and yes, someday we'll be the crazies on the airplane traveling with these FOUR {ahem...or more?!?!?} girls. What a great team we'll have with even more hands to help those who need it most.
Thank you Lord for messing up our plans!
Starting next Thursday, I'll begin sharing every week why I love having a large(r) family.
1 comment:
For so long I felt our large family was something that I wanted as a mother (selfishly!), but as they grow I see how amazing and beneficial our big brood is for each of them. I love that they have each other. Means so much, and of course there's that much more love.
Steph
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