Oh how I delight in witnessing how the Lord works all things together for His good. I am so thankful for all of the people and resources over the years that I have been introduced to and that have influenced and inspired. In my own life I have seen multiple times the way that God has planted a seed in my heart for something, allowed the seed to be SEEMINGLY forgotten (at least by me - but NOT by Him) and then come full circle years later!
This happened to me when, as a teenager and a new Christian, I had a heart for my peers. I wanted them to know and experience the freedom that comes when you choose to follow Jesus Christ. I wanted them to see its not lame or boring or a buzz kill, like I had thought it was. The Lord was igniting a flame. As my youth quickly turned into motherhood, with young children to look after, I had all but forgotten about those feelings and desires. A decade later and the idea of working with students was something I found entirely intimidating, but I was praying about where to serve in my church and the Lord held out a hand and pulled me into student ministries. The initial apprehension soon gave way for a euphoric peace and excitement in being a part of His ministry to teenagers. I have learned an immense amount of knowledge in the past 4 years and while I know it has shaped me for future circumstances, I just plain love what I do!
I remember when my oldest was about six weeks old. I cradled her round little body and looked into her big magical eyes and considered her life and wondered at what it would hold. This particular time, the result of this trail of thinking wound up leaving me in a panicked anxiety attack. At six weeks old I was having heart palpitations about where my daughter would go to school! I felt it urgent to have this figured out. I had heard all of the time about how fleeting these moments of them being young were and I was certain at any moment I would blink and she would be 5 years old and I would be caught unprepared. Silly girl. But it did start some thinking. When she was nearing school-age I was stressing again. Private school was out of our budget, and public school seemed to promise moral disintegration almost immediately. I questioned home school, but my husband immediately shut it down. His own home school experience had left more than a sour taste about the whole concept. Eventually, through much prayer, I released my child into the best public school in our county (which isn't saying much), and into the Lord's care, trusting that God would use here to be a light to those around her and that He would protect her from evil. I cannot put into words how extraordinarily God answered those prayers!!! She spent six years in that school, having mostly teachers who share our same values, thriving! Her younger sisters followed behind her. Fast forward to the beginning of fifth grade, and I was once again experiencing that same anxiety as my baby girl was heading full speed ahead into adolescence and middle school. Middle school years are among the most awkward in a child's life, and while we had a great experience with our elementary school, there were really no good options for grades 6-8. I prayed. God answered. He put people in my husbands life who gently yet enthusiastically showed him that home education is NOT what it used to be, or at least not as he experienced it. My husband learned about how active families are, how much support there is, and he couldn't help but notice how mature and respectable the homeschooled children around us were. He was won over. And our daughters and I leaped at the opportunity and haven't looked back since!
Lately it seems that God is drawing me full circle back to one of my earlier ideals. As a 19 year old sitting beside my fiance and posed with the question of how many children I would like to have, I eagerly responded 8! There was no particular affinity for that number, I just knew I loved children and loved the idea of having a big close-knit family. It was those two motives that encouraged me and my husband to have our children close together. With three daughters ages 4 and under and barely able to pay the bills, my husband truly felt the pressure to seal off the prospect of our family growing any larger. As he did that, my dream of a big family died. I never quite felt I was done, though. That notorious "baby fever" has never left. I wondered at that, but as years passed, I have focused on delighting in the children God has given us, and wading through, sometimes unsuccessfully, the storms that have nearly flattened us. The Lord teaches us so much in those storms. I have learned to be grateful for them, immensely.
This brings me to the past year or two where that flame that started in my idealistic naive teenaged mind has recently been fanned again. I still have those "we aren't done yet" feelings, and like contractions during labor, they seem to become more intense and more often with each passing day. Whats crazy is that I still cannot see how this is at all possible. My husband is still confident in his opinion that three is enough, and that the financial burden of adding to that is more than he wishes to bare. Bless his heart, how I long for him to know the freedom that comes from laying our burdens down at the foot of the cross and taking up the yoke of the Lord which is light!! I am also, 100% convinced that God is working things together for our family to grow. I have no clue how or when or how much, but its exciting! I am somewhat relieved not to be able to imagine these things, it makes it so much more exciting to bear witness as it is played out, or often, in hindsight because that's usually how it goes. That old familiar feeling is there, the Holy Spirit within that impresses upon my heart, "Hang tight, something big is about to happen!"
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