I posted a little about this on Facebook earlier, but since it ties in so nicely with a post I was working on last week (and didn't publish because I reflected that it wasn't very polite), I'm going to elaborate on it all here. "It", namely, is what I where I was in my life 1o years ago, and how it relates to where I am now. It is quite possible to wax very eloquent - and for a very long time - on such a subject, but never fear. I am not sufficiently out of my first-trimester haze (my baby hasn't quite understood that I'm officially out of that trimester and no longer need to feel sick or tired AT ALL EVER these days) to put together anything very complicated or, for that matter, anything with too many big words or ideas. After all, as a dear relative (who doesn't read this) pointed out over the holidays, I HAVE had four children and am working on another one - it is doubtful whether I am still as smart as I was when I was a little girl. No joke - although I did laugh, and my feelings are not hurt. :-)
At any rate, ten years ago I was newly married (about 7 months), and we had just recently moved to Greenville, SC, where, incidentally, I was to meet some of you readers in later months! We were settling into married life, and into our very small apartment, and we were also preparing for our very first baby. I was about 18 weeks pregnant at the turn of the new year, and had little idea what was ahead. We were to make so many mistakes and engage in so many struggles in the decade to come, but we were also to gain wisdom and understanding, and to be plunged into deeper joys than we could imagine. Several moves and four beautiful children later, we are in our second house and in our more favored location in South Carolina - I appreciate having met you, my dear friends, but there was little else about Greenville that I loved! - and much is different about ourselves and our lives now as we approach the coming decade. But one thing that is the same is that I am once again pregnant, expecting an arrival next summer, just as I was 10 years ago. Of course, many of the circumstances are different, but there is something about the expecting itself, the secret communion between myself and this hidden treasure, that it exactly the same. It also occured to me today that I have spent the entire first decade of this century pregnant and/or nursing children. It's not the only thing I've done, but it has certainly characterized my life during these years. And that's ok. Not only is it ok, but it's the purpose I want to be fulfilling, and am happy to still be fulfilling. I am not accidentally "popping out babies," or just finding myself pregnant every couple years. I admit that on some occasions I have felt a little shell-shocked upon the discovery - not as if I weren't expecting it to happen at any time, but just being hit with the reality of it, and answering the questions and doubts in my own head. Is this a good time? Do I really want to do this? Usually when other people began asking these same questions out loud - and sometimes with the thinly veiled, "When do intend to be DONE?" - I come to my senses and remember that yes, I do want to do this. I don't consider children merely to be adornments for - or conversely, detractions from - my life, therefore, there's no set number that's "enough", and no number after which they become superfluous kids just draining us of time and money. What am I going to do with another one? A better question is what will this individual, this soul who will carve out a place in this world of their own, do with us? What will our family look like in this coming decade because of this new person? What joys will be ours while watching this person, and the four we have already, grow up? If we are given no more than five, then our joy will be complete - and yet somehow even greater if we have more. I don't know what the end number will be for us, and it's with purpose and peace that I embrace not knowing. I'm not worried that God doesn't know what he's doing and that my reproductive system will just continue to go haywire unless I do something about it. He may give us peace about using outward means to complete our family, but if he doesn't, I already have peace about accepting what he gives us now. And, by the way, if he gives us more boys from here on out, I'll be happy with that, too. More than one person has told my boys that they didn't "need" the brother they confessed to hoping for, and to that I say that we need whatever God intends to give us. It would be fun to have another girl, but I'm not praying desperately for one, as if I just won't know what to do with my life if I have another boy.
But there, I'm beginning to wander into the less-than-polite mode I had hoped to avoid. Suffice it say that this decade will hold for me some of the same as last decade. I will give birth, and nuture young children, and I don't know how long that will last. I do hope to explore some of personal creative outlets and to cultivate interests and ambitions, and it may be - it probably will be- that at some point in the next 10 years I will move past the baby stage altogether. But I'll embrace it for as many years as it continues. The business of bringing people into this world, and of raising them to God's glory, is a good and noble one. I'm thankful to be continuing with this little one growing in me now.
Happy New Year!
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