With Every Child Comes a Loaf of Bread

This is a beautiful reflection from my good friend Laurie. She and her husband Brandon live in Tennessee with their four gorgeous kids and she is expecting her fifth in June. I asked her if I could share this post on our blog, enjoy!

"This is a saying my mother in law told me several years ago and I treasure the words to this day especially when we find out we are having another baby! Yes we are expecting number five and we are all so excited. The ETA of this baby is June 9, 2011.
I love these words because it speaks to so many concerns when allowing God the opportunity to bless you with another little blessing. There are so many excuses that can keep us from taking the leap of faith and conceiving another baby. Some of those things are money, time, energy, lack of resources, lack of patience, to busy, to crazy, to messy, can't keep up. You name it I have said it to myself and have heard many other people say it as well. Thankfully as in exercising or training for a marathon you grow a little at a time. You are pushed a little further each day you train. The process with children begins with the pregnancy. The exhaustion, sickness, uncomfortableness, the pain, the varicose veins, the indigestion and whatever else you may face in your pregnancy. These are little acts of love through suffering that are preparing your heart for a new little person that will rock your world. For the funny, the bad, the ugly, the messy and mostly the wonderful each new little baby totally rocks my world. If I thought any differently I would be deceiving myself. The baby comes and the grace comes and your heart grows and stretches a little more each day. Everything stretches to the point that you look back after having your fifth baby and four seems super easy now. Yes five seems insanely crazy right now and you can't keep up with anything, but heck four is a breeze now. Take one away for a day and leave me with four and I have a break!


Lets step back for a minute when I had 1 I was 100% full and gave all that I had and thought there was nothing more within me left to give. No more patience, love, time, energy and no more money, but then sweet little two was conceived and the process began the grace began to flow, the grace did not come before we conceived but after and continues to flow from that point as it is needed. So two comes and wow does one child seem so easy because you are expanding and growing because of the grace of God. I think the grace of God is so evident in openness to life and having more children because I look at women with eight and ten children and I really believe it is not humanly possible and that is why there are so few people who take that leap so many times. They are having to rely heavily on God because their capacity is so limited. It all seems so unexplainable humanly speaking because the woman with one is 100% full and the woman with ten is the exact same. It is only explainable by the grace of God. He will always give the grace so take the leap when he is asking. I am not saying every family has to have a brood of 10, but I am saying God does have a number for each family and this is such an important area to listen and to put aside our worries and trust that if he asks us to bring another life into this world the grace will only come after we say yes after we take the leap."