Every once in a while when my kids are all playing, standing, running really doing anything in the same general vicinity, I stop and think..."I can't believe they are ALL mine!"
Lately, I've noticed that when we're all together and out and about anywhere, we tend to draw stares. Not mean stares, but interested, inquisitive stares from people probably thinking something like...
Are they ALL yours?
How close are they in age?
WOW.
You have your hands FULL!
I know this because these are the kinds of questions or comments I'll get every once in a while from people who are brave enough to voice the thoughts that are swirling around in their head when our little family crosses their path :)
Here's a picture taken from a trip to Walmart this last winter...
I've mentioned this before, but I'm being hit with it afresh these days.
It was never MY PLAN to have four kids.
If you would've asked me 9 years ago when we got married, how many kids we thought we'd have, I would've said, "TWO" (like my family) or maybe...if I felt REALLY brave... "THREE" (like John's family!)
I'm so thankful God's plan isn't limited to our expectations!
Imagining life without my sweet little surprises is impossible.
God's plan is ALWAYS better than ours!
The dynamic going on between them all is precious right now...
Ryder is the leader of the pack, and they LISTEN to him...seriously.
Cole and Cora have the sweetest little relationship right now...they are inseparable some of the time but then bicker back and forth like...brother and sister (go figure) the rest of the time :) All day long, Cora says, "Mom..I miss Coley."
Here's a snapshot of dinnertime at our house...
Cole and Cora have been playing this game lately where they tell each other what kind of face to make. (happy, mad, etc...)
(Sorry for the close up of John's pizza at the end...oops! I was just trying to get our Rylee-girl in there at the end! Do you see how everyone stops when she joins in! )
Is having four kids easy?
No. Not once since having even my 1st child have I thought parenting is easy.
Is being a mom one of the most life changing roles I've ever had?
Yes! With each child added to my family, I've had to trust more fully that God will supply my every need.
God wants to transform our lives, through complete dependence on HIM, the One who wrote our story!
He knows that it is only through complete and total surrender of our will that we will experience His BEST for us.
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I read this in My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, a few days ago and it SO spoke to my heart...
Genesis 17:1
When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the LORD appeared to him and said, “I am God Almighty; walk before me faithfully and be blameless.
As soon as you begin to live the life of faith in God, fascinating and physically gratifying possibilities will open up before you. These things are yours by right, but if you are living the life of faith you will exercise your right to waive your rights, and let God make your choice for you. God sometimes allows you to get into a place of testing where your own welfare would be the appropriate thing to consider, if you were not living the life of faith. But if you are, you will joyfully waive your right and allow God to make your choice for you. This is the discipline God uses to transform the natural into the spiritual through obedience to His voice.
Whenever our right becomes the guiding factor of our lives, it dulls our spiritual insight. The greatest enemy of the life of faith in God is not sin, but good choices which are not quite good enough. The good is always the enemy of the best. In this passage, it would seem that the wisest thing in the world for Abram to do would be to choose. It was his right, and the people around him would consider him to be a fool for not choosing.
Many of us do not continue to grow spiritually because we prefer to choose on the basis of our rights, instead of relying on God to make the choice for us. We have to learn to walk according to the standard which has its eyes focused on God. And God says to us, as He did to Abram, “. . . walk before Me. . .”
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We're packing up our life here is Illinois, preparing for the our move to California in a month. We don't yet know where we're going to live, where Ryder will go to school or how God will piece together His provision for us as we faithfully follow His clear call. We don't have the answers to many of the questions we're asked these days, but in these in between times, we cling to what we DO know.
God has a plan for us that we could never plan for or dream up for ourselves!
I may not have all the answers yet, but I know the One who does. He tells me not to fear, for He is with me...not to be afraid, for He is my God! His best is all that I want :) His best awaits anyone who places their trust FULLY in Him. Part of God's best for ME is wrapped up in the lives of four precious children that He knew, from the beginning of time, would be mine. Left to myself, I would make all kinds of choices, none of which would've included so many of the things I now consider the WAY I experience His grace, strength, peace and LIFE everyday. Poised on the edge of another huge life shift, I give him my apprehension, my fear and my incomplete understanding of it all, and trade it in for His peace, His PLAN and His joy through it all!
Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.
