"Sons are a heritage from the Lord,
children a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one's youth.
Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their
enemies in the gate.
Psalms 127:3-5
This is where we get the term quiverfull. Those of you who have seen our license plate may have already asked us about what that means. (And no our plate does NOT say Overful!) It means that we consider our children a blessing from God and we will not be turning down any that He wants to send our way. Did we always feel that way? No, we didn't. Well, we always felt our children were blessings, but there was a time when we considered it our decision as to when and if we would have anymore.
Sometime after the birth of our fourth child, I felt like God was telling me that I needed to be open to having more children. Originally we thought we would just have four children. Rick was the oldest of four, I was the youngest of four.......that seemed like a good number. I'd always been fascinated by large families and when I was little I had planned on having a lot of children. But then most little girls do! Everyone in my family can tell you the story about how when I was about 3 or 4, they would hear me on Saturday morning bright and early, rocking in my little red rocking chair and chanting "I wish I was a mama!" Boy, did God grant that wish! And then some!
Okay, so God had my attention! More children? Sure, I'd love to do that. But Rick....well let's just say he had some reservations. I talked to him about it, but he was definitely not sold on the idea. He had the typical worries that I would dare say most men have....How can I provide for a large family? Raising children can be expensive. And well, we weren't exactly the most patient parents. Turning over your family size to God? Letting Him bless you with as many children as He saw fit? But that could mean a child every year! Surely that isn't what He wants us to do. He wants us to be responsible with our fertility. Right? Wasn't it being irresponsible to keep having children? That is certainly what the world would have us to believe. So, anyway, Rick was not sold on the idea at first. I was determined not to nag him about it. I just prayed and told God that if that is what He wanted for us, then it was going to be up to him to change Rick's mind. I continued to read about other quiverful families and I continued to pray about it. Occasionally it would still come up in conversations. Then something happened. I noticed Rick now was defending the quiverful mindset! God HAD changed his mind. So....we threw out the birth control. I won't say it wasn't scary at times. I was still a bit apprehensive about the thought of having a baby every year. I'm one of those women who does not stop having periods while nursing a baby. Doctors had told me before that I could very well be one of those women who gets pregnant even though I nurse on demand for the first year. But if God truly was telling us to do this, then it would be okay. "We" had planned our first four children and liked that they were all about 2 years apart.
Things didn't go exactly as I'd planned (notice that I still had a plan here). We were perfectly content to accept another baby if God sent us one, but I wasn't prepared for what happened instead. I did get pregnant (right on schedule) but when I went into the doctor around 9 weeks, he did not see/hear a heartbeat. He wasn't that concerned. He just said come back in 2 weeks and we'll do another ultrasound. I didn't make it in for that next appt. because I started miscarrying before that. That was one of the hardest times in my life. I'd always been worried about losing a baby. You could say it was a fear of mine. But more than that....what did this mean? We had just turned our fertility over to God. We'd said we would accept any children he wanted to give us. I would have been okay if we had not had any more. I mean I wanted more now, but if we didn't have any more then I'd KNOW that was God's plan. But this? What was this? Getting pregnant only to lose the baby? Of course, I had one person tell me that maybe this was God's way of saying to stop having children. I KNEW that wasn't it though. I will admit that I was angry. I went through the whole grieving process, but boy I dwelled on that anger for quite a while. It wasn't long before I got pregnant again and we had our 5th child. After him, we had another early miscarriage. Again, I was down in a pit. God was there for me though. I did not go through the anger this time, but I did not like the pattern that I thought I was seeing form. Miscarriages took a lot out of me physically, but nothing compared to what they did to me emotionally. I did not want to experience that pain over and over again. But we still heard God saying to trust him. And we did (and do)! Those of you who know us well, know that we have gone on to have 4 more children. We do not second guess our decision to turn our fertility over to God. It was something that we heard very clearly from Him. I have found that sometimes others want to argue with us about that decision and say that God would not want us to do that--that we heard wrong and we are twisting scriptures. We do not preach the quiverful lifestyle to others. It isn't our place. Just as I could not have changed my own husband's mind, it is not my place to change yours. But I do ask you to listen if you are feeling led in this direction. Really listen to what He is saying to you. No, he isn't going to require it of you. You are given a choice. But if He is saying that he wants to bless you with more children, do you really want to say "No, thank you?"
And as for those worries about being able to provide for a large family....well ask us some time! We'll tell you how richly God has blessed our lives! No, we are not rich in the material ways of this world, but then again, we aren't lacking either. There have been hard times and scary times, but those were also the times when God showed us who He is! When times were leaner, with the birth of every child there came a new contract for Rick's business. Most of the time, these contracts fell in his lap! What I mean by that was that it was not through Rick's own doing that he got the jobs. They would come from calls out of the blue. No, they were not coincidences. The timing was just too perfect. That was God's way of reminding Rick that he was not the one providing for his family. God was providing for HIS family and He will continue to do so.
