Lori's Random Thoughts: February 2008

I have a ton of different thoughts rolling around in my head right now. I started my day off eating some breakfast (yes i can call a rice krispie bar with chocolate and peanut butter on it breakfast) and surfing my normal blogs. I got stuck on a blog this morning though with a post about large families. I am very undecided on the size of our family right now. Jay has always said that he wants 7 kids and I have always said I want 3 or 4 (to me that is a big family, as I grew up in a home with only my brother and I). We have had many discussions about our family size and have basically left it with the we will take it one child at a time and see where that takes us. As the days go on I seem to get more set in my ways of only wanting possibly one more (if I can even handle that) and I know Jay is very saddened by that thought. He has made it clear that he wants a big family, but I think has resigned himself to the fact I can't handle a houseful of kids.
Even though I think I am pretty close to capacity of the number of kids I want, I am very intriguied by big families. I find myself drawn to blogs of big families and love seeing pictures and reading about large families. They just seem to have such well behaved kids (probably out of necessity) and just seem to be such neat people. I guess the fact that I'm drawn to observe large families should be at least a small indication to me that God might have something different instore for me other than having a "typical American" sized family.
Anyway back to this morning.... I was reading a blog I read regularly and she had a post about being Quiverful. I of course was intriguied by the post so I kept reading more posts about it this morning and have a ton running through my head as a result. I'm not sure exactly how I feel about trusting God with my fertility (sounds worse when you actually write it out... like I'm saying God can't be trusted) because I'm pretty much get pregnant as soon as Jay looks at me.... which following this mindset would mean I would have a new baby every 18 months or so... which I'm not ok with. But anyway that isn't so much the point of this post as to say God might be calling us to have a big family and I might be coming closer to accepting that fact. (Don't worry Anna - I'm not going to run out and act on this yet... Abby is still too young to have a new sibling)... :) I'm just alot more open to the fact that maybe a big family is in the cards for us and I'm kind of excited to see where this whole thing takes us.
Jay and I really desire to be in youth ministry full time but the idea of trying to balance many kids (read new babies) and be a youth pastor's wife overwhelms me.... I fear I won't be able to be involved enough if I am constantly popping out new babies. Well obviously God knows more than I do and He obviously has a plan for our lives, so we will see what happens. Maybe God has another plan that I can't imagine.... I know He is in control & always has been. He has lead us to this point for such a time as this, I need to trust that He knows the next steps even though I can't quite understand what they are.

Oh and here is another interesting quote from another blog I randomly read this morning. "We believe in letting God control the size of our family. We believe the Bible teaches that children are a blessing, and we should not deny God the ability to bless us how He sees fit. I mean, really, if God were blessing us with tons of money, would we ask him to stop because we have too much? No thanks, God, I'm having trouble controling the bank accounts of what I have already... please stop sending the cash flow my way. Of course not. That's ridiculous. Yet that is exactly what many people do each and every day." Just some food for thought today... I will have to see what Jay's opinion is on all of this later.