The Baby Bug

It gets to many of us.  I've talked to multiple women so I know it's not just me.  For years, you've thought about how wonderful it would be to share your life with someone, to be married to the man that God has for you.  You spend months planning details for a wedding, whether or not you care about the symmetry of every table decoration.  Then, not long after you get home from your honeymoon, the baby bug bites.

Married?  Check.  Children?  Not yet.  Wait a minute!  Children?  We weren't even thinking about having children until a few years into our marriage!  Yep, I remember thinking, after being married for only one month, that it must be time for Teacher Man and I to start having children.  In my mind, I knew that was crazy.  He had two more years of his undergrad.  We were living in a two-room apartment off of my salary as a private school teacher.  We're talking less than $20,000 per year.  We're talking a budget too tight to buy ice cream.  Why on earth did I feel like the next step was children?  Let's try a more realistic goal...  How about graduation for Teacher Man?  That seems a bit more logical.  Right?

We honestly thought that expanding our family was years away.  Years!  However, seven months later, when my waistline began to expand, we realized that sometimes God answers the desires of our heart in completely illogical ways.  Psalm 37:4 says, "Delight yourself in the Lord, and He will give you the desires of your heart."  I love that verse, but I often think that we receive the desires of our heart because He has given us those desires.  It is actually HIS will that those desires come to fruition.

Teacher Man and I were delighting in the Lord, in serving Him together, in the life He had given us; and so He saw fit to give us another life.  And after the initial shock, panic, tears, and chaos of figuring out how we would provide for and love this little gift; Caleb truly became our delight.  And after Caleb, Ben filled the desire that God had given us to raise Caleb alongside a brother.

I say all of this because several months ago, I got bit by the baby bug.  The boys were getting bigger, and both Teacher Man and I truly desired another sweet baby in the house.  By His grace, God saw fit to give us another child, to gift us with the desire of our heart.  Some days, I'm overwhelmed by my life.  There's too much to do.  There are too many needs.  There is only one of me, and most of the time I feel like I'm falling apart at the seams.  However, God has been so faithful.

There are times when I will see a friend with her new baby and think, "I wish we had another little one..." only to delight in remembering that we are only three months away from meeting our precious daughter.  What an amazing reality.

There are times that I worry about not having enough time to go around, not enough resources to meet every want, not enough patience to handle every mishap.  But I know that there is more than enough love to go around in this house.  I know that each of our children, planned or unplanned, is wanted, is a blessing, has an incredible calling on his/her life.  Each of them was sent not only to fulfill the desires of our hearts but to accomplish the will of the Father and to delight in Him.  So we will keep on keeping on, delighting in the One who created us and in the gifts He has given us and depending on His faithfulness, which is so much greater than we could ever imagine.