A glimpse into my heart

I've prayed for quite a few weeks about if I should write this post or not. To be honest, I'm a little nervous. I pray that you will be gracious to me as I attempt to share my heart and that you will take this as what it is, merely "This is where the Lord has led us" not, " This is what I think you should do."

35 days until our little one arrives. I am so thrilled! For those of you who don't want to do the math this will make four children in 56 months (a little over four and a half years). The comments are already starting (okay they started a couple of children ago!) and I don't see them slowing any time soon. I'm honestly very tired of giving wishy-washy answers as to what our "plan" is, so here I go to try and give you all the complete version. I don't attempt this very often so count yourself fortunate!

To start out with, you need to know a little of what I believe. I believe in a God who is All-Powerful, All-Knowing, Always Present, Incomprehensible, Eternal, Faithful, Good, Just, Merciful, Gracious, Loving, Holy and Sovereign. I believe that He created everything, that He knew me and all His plans for my life before I was ever born. I believe that He has complete control over nature, that He healed incurable diseases, that He raised the dead to life and that He Himself defeated death.

I also believe that the Bible is the written word of God and that it reveals to us who He is. That it is true, and that we can believe what it tells us all of the time.

So anyway, that's where I'm coming from. I jotted down a few scriptures that help form the way that I think. If you want the references, please let me know and I would be happy to give them to you. These are scattered from throughout the Bible and hopefully I won't lose you! ( Italics are mine!)

"I will bless her and will surely give you a son by her...", "for the Lord had closed up every womb in Abimelech's household...", "The Lord did for for Sarah what He promised . Sarah became pregnant.", "The Lord answered his prayer, and his wife Rebekah became pregnant.", "...He opened her womb...", " Am I in the place of God who has kept you from having children?", " God listened to Leah, and she became pregnant...", " He listened to her and opened her womb.", "The Lord enabled her to conceive...", "The Lord had closed her womb.", "The Lord remembered her. So in the course of time Hannah conceived.", " May the Lord give you children...", "And the Lord was gracious to Hannah; She conceived.".

And here were the mothers responses,
"God has granted me another child...", "I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him.", " The Lord has done this for me.", " It is because the Lord has seen my misery.", "Because the Lord heard that I am not loved, He gave me this one.", " God has vindicated me,", "God has taken away my disgrace.", "God has rewarded me,", "God has presented me with a precious gift.".

Many people ( and I'm one of them!) say that they want the Lord to direct their lives. Where they live, work, minister. They want to trust the Lord and what He has planned for them because face it, we know that His plans are better than our plans. We want that in all areas of our life. It's not always easy, but that is our desire.

So here it is for you all to see; We have decided that we would rather have Him plan how many children we should have and when they should come rather than do it ourselves, very simply because we truly believe that He can do a much better job of it than we can. We don't believe that babies are just something that happen if not protected against. Like all of the above mentioned women and situations, we believe that God chooses and is in complete control over every womb that is opened or closed. We've heard the arguments and all of the reasons why we are very foolish, but thus far we are not convinced. We are witnesses every day of the awesome plans of God. Nothing in the world could convince me that I could have planned my family any better than what He has given me.

"Easy for you to say. You have three sweet little girls. Wait until you have six, eight or ten. Or even (heaven forbid!) BOYS!". Let me just say this now, if ever you hear that we have changed our minds, I hope that you will demand a pretty good explanation from us. Not to say that the Lord will never lead us another way, but that's exactly what it would have to be. It cracks me up when people ask, "So you plan on having like 20 kids?!". My answer is no. I plan on having three little girls today, with a precious new little one coming in 5 weeks. I'm completely excited about what the Lord has planned for our future and only feel anxious when I focus on my strength and abilities and not His. But how could I hope to get through any portion of this life with just my strength?

Thank you for those of you who made it all the way through this novel! Again, this was written in no way to try and convince you of anything and especially not to make you feel guilty, but hopefully just to clearly communicate where the Lord has lead us. Please pray for us as we continue to seek His wisdom and to honor Him in all that we say and do. Blessings to you all!