Every once in a while, we get asked about how many children we have. If it’s during the week, I normally only have our youngest, so the assumption is we have either one or maybe two if one is in school. It’s always interesting the responses I get when I tell moms we have 10 kids, but most are just flat out amazed.
What’s a big family?
To be clear, I was not raised in a large family or encouraged to have a large family. Large families are what people did back in the day (or as my mother put it, “las mujeres de antes”), but not now is what I was told. I remember when I was a child, one of my friends had 3 sisters. At that time, I thought that was a huge family.
Population control
Fast forward a few years, and I remember getting interviewed for a college I wanted to go to. I’m not sure how the conversation steered over to this, but the person interviewing me asked about the earth’s population (or something to that affect). And I confidently told the surprised interviewer there are too many people on the earth. We need to have population control.
Doesn’t God have the greatest sense of humor?
So when was the change?
So I’m sure you’re asking, what and when was the change? Well, all I have to say is that the LORD is sovereign. And He works with what He has, in His perfect timing. Obviously, I didn’t go from wanting zero children to “Let’s trust God in this!” I was on quite the winding adventure to get to where the LORD wanted me (and my future husband).
First, I met my husband. He has 4 siblings. Whenever we would spend time with his family, it was so much fun! I loved it. That’s not just a reflection of a big family, but also a beautiful family with great parents. But still. I had never known anything like it up until that point.
Next, I came to Christ. Shortly after, so did my then fiance, now husband. After we had our first baby, everyone asked us, “How many do you think you’d like to have?” We would look at each other, and say: “Somewhere between three and MAX five.”
We definitely got push back on the five, but we were young. People eventually just let it go, assuming we’d know better once reality set in. But just for good measure, we were reminded of the cost of kids. We were also warned of how taxing it all is! Why’d you want THAT many kids?
Korea
Later, we moved to Korea with two children. Eventually we got to baby #4 when I unwaveringly asserted, “This is our last baby!” I was so done, giving all of my pregnancy clothes enthusiastically away. Ahem. Yeah, well, the LORD had other plans. He introduced us to another family who were pregnant with baby # 5, but same ages (they had a set of twins, but the ages of our children were exactly the same). I remember looking at her and asking, “So you’re done, right?” She’d just smile and say, “I don’t know! We’ll see.”
Surely this woman didn’t understand me or she’s a nut job. But we got along great, so we continued to hang out and eventually started doing a family bible study together. We started studying Shepherding a Child’s Heart, one of the absolute best parenting books out there. However, I don’t believe it was the study in and of itself. But it was more the fellowship that we had with this family and one other that had a very big influence on us. They brought to our attention how we pray and trust God in every other area of our life. But how often do families pray and trust God for the size of their family?
I had honestly never thought about it. It was a huge paradigm shift for me. Having four children was quite out of the norm in my family. So as it was, we were pushing against the grain. But MORE kids? Really?
Praying
We prayed and prayed about it. We kept going back to Psalm 139. It was a decision we didn’t come to lightly. But I can now attest that I am so, so thankful that we did.
No regrets
I share this with all of you to remind you that when you ask older parents if they wish they had done anything different, most would say they wish they had a couple more kids. I’d say few, if any, would say they wished they had fewer.
I’m not going to lie to you. As most of you know first hand, children are hard. They’re messy and take an incredible amount of time. In short, they’re a sacrifice. But I can’t tell you what a tremendous blessing they are. I think they’re essentially like a trick sacrifice. You sacrifice of yourself in the beginning more than you thought you ever could. But at the back end, you receive more than you ever dreamed possible.
Yes, we gave up a lot. Yes, they’re still hard sometimes. But I wouldn’t change a thing. If anything, I wish we started having these blessings sooner. Then my oldest would have her wish of having an older sibling.
Blessings
God’s blessings may require of us more than we expected to give. But we truly can’t out give God. He really wants us to have life to the full. Does that mean everyone MUST have children to be obedient to the LORD? No, not at all. But what we must do is pray and trust the LORD as He leads. We need to obey, even when it doesn’t make sense. Even when people think you’re crazy for submitting to what you know the LORD is calling you to do. Whatever that looks like. We can trust that He is good, and wants the best for us.
It’s rarely a straight line, but praise God for His sovereignty. God is so patient. He is wild and untamable. But praise His name, He is so good.
If you’d like to read more about the blessing of children and those pushing against the “birth dearth” of our culture, check out Hannah’s Children! Written by an incredible social scientist who herself has 8 beautiful blessings.
