For my children

One of my friends posted a thought-provoking question on her blog the other day: I wonder if you believe (whether you have children or not) that one should have a plan before entering a lifetime of parenthood.  A goal.  A hope and a dream.  As in, “I am having children because I believe it is my religious duty.”  Or, “We are having children because we believe we can raise a child that will change the world.”  And when you have a child, you are always thinking about that reason in the back of your mind.  I had kids in order that … dot dot dot.

Perhaps this is clearer: Why should someone- anyone- have children? 

As I thought about my answer to this, I realized that this is something my children need to know. They need to know how they came to be. They need to know that the Lord planned each of them from the beginning and put them into our family at just the right time. They need to know that human plans fail sometimes, but the Lord's plans never, ever do. So, this is a story for my kids to read someday, but perhaps you will enjoy reading it, too. You will find out things you didn't know about me or about our little family, and I hope you will come to see how great and wonderful is the Lord's plan for each of us.

I always assumed I would be a mom at some point, because that’s generally just what one does. Jeff and I sort of loosely planned to wait about five years after we were married to start “trying.” We made our plans, but our plans turned out not to be quite what the Lord had for us.

I was taking birth control pills when Jeff and I got married. It soon became clear that my body didn’t react well to The Pill. Everything went haywire. Five different hormonal birth control options later, with my body completely confused about what it was supposed to do, I decided to give it up completely. At that point, it became necessary to consider parenthood on a more serious level. And not at all according to our plan. It was time to just see what the Lord had in store for us.

It was almost a year before we conceived. A crazy year, in which I went from wondering if I was ready to be a parent to wondering if I ever would (could) be one. I was thrilled and terrified when I found out I was pregnant. But I was also in love. And then, I was involved in a crazy accident just two weeks before Ruth was born, which made me evaluate the pregnancy anew. It was then that I knew that I didn’t just WANT to be a mom; I NEEDED to be a mom. It was what I was meant to do. Holding Ruth in my arms for the first time, I felt more like “me” than I ever had.

Still, it took us quite a while to decide to have another baby. We wondered if we would be able to love another child like we loved the first. We wondered if our lives weren't already complete with just the one child. We had always thought we would have several children, but suddenly we weren't so sure about that. 

But, eventually, it just felt like something was missing. It felt like our family wasn't truly complete, and we were ready to add another little miracle. Turns out, Weston was just the piece that was missing. 

The decision to have #3 was much easier, and so we set to work on it pretty quickly. I was thrilled when I found out I was pregnant…and devastated when I miscarried. I grieved long and hard over that lost child, and was still grieving a couple of months later when I began to feel like something strange was going on with my body. Thinking that it wasn’t even possible for me to get pregnant so quickly after the miscarriage (according to the opinions of several medical professionals), we were shocked to learn that I was, in fact, pregnant. My reaction was one of anger. I couldn’t understand why our plan to have a baby had been rejected in favor of this new plan. I was still grieving and did not even want to consider being happy about the pregnancy or about the thought of being a mom again. I was almost saying in my heart that I wanted it my way or no way. 

After wrestling with God for a while, I did get happy about the new addition. And I came to appreciate the opportunity to have my faith tested and strengthened. I had always claimed that the Lord’s plans were better than my plans, but I had never had the two plans so contradict each other. The Lord’s plans really are better. I couldn’t imagine not having my Max! But that is also the kid that made me think I was definitely done having babies. He was (and is) a challenge in so many ways.

Then, a little over a year ago, we had a “surprise.” It wasn’t planned, but it happened, and we were thrilled! We were glad, once again, that our plans hadn’t worked out and that the Lord was going to give us one more. After 2 excited months, I lost that baby. And again, I grieved. But the time of mourning finally came to an end, and we realized that our little family still didn’t feel complete. So, now there is another bun in the oven, who we are looking forward to meeting in early May.

It has been quite a road, with lots of ups and a few downs. But why did we chose this journey? It’s because, for us, there was a deep desire to give of ourselves, to shape lives, to love almost beyond our capacity to comprehend, and to fulfill, what we felt like, was the Lord’s calling on our lives. There was so much we didn’t know–that we couldn’t even have imagined–when we started down this path. There is still so much we don’t know. But we wouldn’t trade one moment, not one experience (even the heartbreaking ones!), for this chance to be parents and to see just a glimpse of the Lord’s project from the Father’s perspective. It is truly an amazing and wonderful journey!

Ultimately, the only plan for having children that makes any sense at all is to determine to go along with the Lord's plan, whatever it may be. There are couples who want to have children and can't. There are others who don't want children and are extremely fertile. I honestly don't know why this is. We all make our plans, but it is the Lord's purpose that prevails (Proverbs 19:21). And His plans are always perfect.