A little over five years ago, I met a woman in church who had five children and was expecting number six. I asked if she hoped to have more, and she very graciously replied something like, “You know, that’s been a question on our minds recently. Our house is full, our table is full, our vehicle is full~and yet we are trusting God to plan the size of our family. OH how peaceful it would be if only I’d surrender every area of my life so!”
Before I go any farther, please know I’m not going to beat you over the head with my quiver-full beliefs! This is not a matter of salvation, IMO, and I wish wives would stop pressuring their husbands so and trust God to let them lead. Did I mention I’d like to homestead? NOT going to happen! LOL! I’m also going to share my normal WAY TOO MUCH and really put myself out there. I always fear backlash, and yet I can never stop myself….
Anyway, this gracious woman planted a seed. I came home and shared with my darling what she had said. I’d never heard anything like it before, and our church certainly wasn’t preaching anything close to such an idea. We prayed together, and that was it. I felt some tugging on my heart, but I didn’t say much about it to my darling after an initial, “Hey, I’m starting to be on board with this way of thinking!”
Something amazing happened a year or so after that~my darling was reading the Bible on tape for us to listen to around the house. For some reason God really pricked his heart simply with “be fruitful and multiply”. My darling couldn’t get it out of his head and pondered that it was never retracted anywhere else in the Bible. Next thing I know I’m recovering from an abnormal and difficult delivery and saying I didn’t know if I could do it again~only to have him reply, “Well, it’s not up to you!” LOL!
I felt like a hypocrite early on over our QF beliefs. While we weren’t rich, we weren’t struggling. We were still young, but not so young that we might have masses of children before age thirty. Our spacing is just perfect too! And it’s easy for us to conceive. I felt like this calling was just too easy to believe!
A few years later, my darling’s department was cut, and he was laid off. He didn’t work for about nine months, and when he did go back to work, it was for $7.50 an hour to support a family of five. Still it didn’t shake our conviction, and I was glad of that. Then our youngest son showed signs of needing BIG TIME dental intervention. We hadn’t had insurance for a couple of years and always just trusted God to provide in this area too, but now we knew Preston would need some work done, and nowadays doctors don’t just treat you without an up-front payment or insurance. Gone are the days of running a tab! So we signed up for our state’s program for insurance for the children.
We didn’t make enough to qualify, so we were accepted by Medicaid. This was VERY HARD for me to swallow. Politically, I’m not comfortable with it. I struggled with wondering if I wasn’t trusting God enough to provide by taking advantage of this, however I was also thankful that my son would get the care he needs. Now also put out there how others view our being open to children and then not being able to pay for them~YIKES! That’s a really good blow to the ole pride! And it’s sad.
I’m surprised that many of the Christians I know are unsupportive. According to them, we are either irresponsible or not using the reasoning God gave us to continue to have children. It’s a simple matter of trust to us, and doesn’t the Bible tell us that faith is the hope of things unseen? If I can’t get Christians to understand the power of God, well there’s no glimmer of hope for understanding from unbelievers!
With my darling’s change of career, it’s possible that our lives will not look the same in five years. We should be able to afford our own insurance, but I hope we won’t do too much too differently. Simple living is a blessing! I also hope that I’ll pray for those I worry about without ever giving them even a condescending thought. For now I hope to press on, knowing I’ll always be a work in progress!
The more I learn about you, the more I wish you lived closer! This is something that’s been on my heart for a little while now. Not so much letting God plan our family size ~ for us that’s a given. BUt the whole atmosphere regarding quiverful. Women looking down on other women because they do (or don’t) agree. Wives driving thier husbands (& probably God too) crazy because they want something different than ‘the plan’ (whatever that may be in thier lives.) But most of all, the way it seems christianity has turned into a bunch of *movements & instead of trying to soak up all of what our father has to offer us, they are grasping onto one tiny piece to let that define them… and then casting judgement onto everyone who doesn’t see eye to eye with them. And worse, pushing away the very people we are commanded to reach out to because we are putting more importance in doctrine than we are in His ultimate command to love others as He loves us. okay. I’m done. sorry for the rant. I know I’m far from perfect. I’m aware of *most of my faults & the ones I don’t quite catch He is quick to show me. lol. But these are just some things I have been thinking about…
interesting … Romans 8:25 (The Message)
All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it’s not only around us; it’s within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We’re also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don’t see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.