“Mother says we ought to study God’s providence more than we do, since He has a meaning and a purpose in everything He does. Sometimes I can do this and find it a source of great happiness. Then worldly cares seem mere worldly cares, and I forget that His wise, kind hand is in every one of them.“
(Katy in Stepping Heavenward, page 216)

We’re often asked, “Well, how many are you going to have?!” Sometimes this is a statement and sometimes it is an honest question. We don’t answer, “As many as the Lord sends,” though we admire those whose faith causes them to answer that way. I tell them –strangers and friends alike—that we’re just taking them one at a time. Cancer, depression, or physical problems beyond pain and nausea could cause us to make decisions differently. Each difficult pregnancy is a step of faith, and we depend on our Creator to renew our faith each time.

He who has the most children doesn’t win. God’s glory is the end, not family in itself. It is all-consuming now, but it won’t always be. They will be ready to take on the world one day. As God blesses us, we depend on him for our children’s salvation, knowing that He requires much from us along the way. What good is it to suffer pain in the beginning, neglect our duty to train them in the way they should go, and then end up with a fool in the end? God desires godly offspring, not a pack of consumer gluttons. We work and He works. We believe and He helps our unbelief.

When God sent our third child, I didn’t understand what He was doing. We’d already had a preschooler and a toddler. Didn’t He know we were already busy over here? Didn’t He know that I wasn’t ready? I found it hard to get back to sleep after being woken up (until #5 came along) and so I asked Him about these things when she’d cry in the middle of the night. I didn’t understand then what I know a little of now: He never makes mistakes and does nothing arbitrarily.

God knew what I needed when I didn’t know it myself. Annalise, my third, is a picture of grace and goodness. She doesn’t speak crossly or complain. She is the one who has waited on me while I’ve been in bed these past several weeks. She gave me her last piece of bubble gum yesterday. She is patient, kind, and eager to please; she is everything that I am not.

It’s not for me to say what other people should be doing. As one who sinks into despair during the worst of it, how could I judge someone else for the same? And what of God’s providence in His refusal as well? Isn’t a “no” from a spouse the same as a “no” from God? “The king’s heart is in the hand of the LORD; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases. All a man’s ways seem right to him, but the LORD weighs the heart.” (Proverbs 21:1-2)

When my childbearing years end, I hope to know more of the words, “They that trust Him wholly, find Him wholly true.” Seems like God can use anything to secure our worship and dependence, but this is way for now.

“And now I am waiting for my Father’s next gift, and the new cares and labors it will bring with it. I am glad it is not left for me to decide my own lot. Welcoming a new bird into the nest, dearly as I love the rustle of their wings and the sound of their voices when they do come. And surely He knows the right moments who knows all my struggles with a certain sort of poverty, poor health and domestic care. If I could feel that all the time, as I do at this moment, how happy I would always be!” (page 215)

“The coming of each new child strengthens and deepens my desire to be what I would have it become; makes my faults more loathsome in my eyes, and elevates my whole character. What a blessed discipline of joy and of pain my married life has been and how thankful I am to reap its fruits even while pricked by its thorns!” (page 180)

(Thank you to Sarah for typing out all these quotes so I could just copy them.)

Life with three under three, #1
Life with three under three, #2
Life with three under three, #3
Life with three under three, #4
Life with three under three, #5
Life with three under three, #6