And Baby Makes Eight!!

I don’t’ think anyone but someone with hmmm, more than 4 children would know the feeling that washed over when you KNOW that you are wanting another one in the family. It is a feeling that there is another one in the home, there is a person “with you” but not…..
You’ll find yourself setting an extra place and the dinner table, or looking for a child………that isn’t there.
I remember just before I became expectant with Amy, my fifth. Our church was having a service, and the kids were in our pew. The music was playing and we were juuuuussst about to start the service….I looked down at my babes, and turned down the aisle and out the door…I walked to the fellowship hall and I looked , I had my “mama-war-face” on….this child wasn’t in their seat for service….I lifted my voice to call the child….and the name wouldn’t come…I stopped. Then thought, and then had to stand there for several minutes while I laughed to myself…..I replayed the little faces that were in the pew in the sanctuary…Oh my word…they were all there….then WHO was I looking for…..about 10 months later….it was Amy.
These past 3 months or so Aaron and I have both struggled with looking, searching, and allowing space for the next one….we didn’t even mean to….It’s things like packing toothbrushes for your vacation and you get annoyed because you can’t find the other one…..and there aren’t any teeth that would even be using the phantom toothbrush if you could find it.
But there is also a feeling that maybe only a mother would feel. And again, I think this would have to be a feeling born in a mother who has birthed or adopted many children….I am not down-playing the feelings mothers of one or two get….I am simply saying there is just a different feeling…at least there was for me…and I will try to explain from my point-of-view, the burning my soul…when I want another baby…
In many ways I have only felt like I have been a decent parent since Mary, a more attentive mommy with Susie, then only a more patient Mommy since Nathan, and then with Amy….I feel like I have come full circle and I have learned so much…I finally feel like I got it, and parenting is more understood. Children will NEVER cease to throw the proverbial curve balls, but at least you are less shocked and horrified by them.
Let me say it this way…could you imagine, or maybe you experienced this first hand….you work and work to learn something because you feel in your bosom, in your soul that you were meant to do it…..It can be as simple as learning to ride your bike, so let me use that analogy….. You worked and worked. You worked all through your summer vacation to get good at it. You know you can do it…..But….. the moment you can feel the wind in your face…and you can feel the freedom and lightness of self-propelled-travel…….then….your mom yells to “Come on in…..tomorrow school starts”……
Do you remember what it was like to finally really really really get the hang of that new venture? Roller skating, bike riding, sewing, cake decorating, etc….. and once you got it…..you just wanted more? Let me stick with the bike riding thought….do you have any memories of a long bike ride as a youngster….and it felt great, and you felt ten feet tall, and you felt like you had really jumped a personal hurdle??? And as the crickets started their melody in the early evening…and you parked your bike….you already couldn’t wait until you got a chance to do it all again.
Maybe it is a spirit of adventure that drives me, and an undying love for that potential that comes in a seven pound package….all the wonder that Jesus Died for, and all the words of scripture were written for that little one…. Every time in scripture when it reads “whosoever” you know that you just had another one of those “whosoever”s…..God’s treasure, His ultimate gift outside of salvation is in your possession, and God leases a new one out……and a feeling of awesomeness and wonder closes around you……..a baby……
If God ever takes you through a valley, when you think you may lose one, like with Nathan…these thoughts become ever so much more apparent……These Children are not ours…..they DID come from God…and He is waiting to see what you will do with that little soul…
Why do I think He is THAT involved? For the simple reason that children will teach you more about the Lord’s love for you, than you could ever hope to gain from any other “person-to-person” experience….The husband and wife relationship is close…but when God refers to us as children….you begin to learn….and you will see yourself spiritually through your experiences as a parent. Unfailing love, Undeniable devotion, and incredible disappointment when the little one won’t follow…..Ohh how sad we must make the Lord….
Who knows by now you probably feel like I am being redundant…..I hope not….all these words to say……When you really come to a place you understand, and you see the big picture, and you feel like “Lord!! I think I got it!!!” You become that child on the bike again…shouting to you parents….”Look!!! LOOK!!!! I got it!!!!!”
Come this spring…..baby #6 will be here….I am praying for a healthy pregnancy and a wonderful birth….And I want to conclude this little thought with this……If it were not for the Grace and Mercy of the Lord, and the lessons He taught me through many many valleys and mountain tops….I wouldn’t be half of who I am….I do feel like I have something to offer….but not anything without the Lord….I don’t care how many babies I bring home, without the Lord, my home is nothing, and my words….a sounding brass…..