having children and loving it

i used to hate the idea of having kids.

the idea of children being a blessing from God was another one of those things that came first as head knowledge and later as heart knowledge. again, i held off for so long on really embracing God’s plan in this area mostly due to my selfishness.

i was blessed to have a mother who stayed at home to raise me from a very young age, so I am fortunate to have a positive view of stay at home moms. i always thought that I would like to stay at home with my kids, but i wanted that to be later, maybe in my late 20’s or early 30’s, after I had done lots of cool things and impacted a lot of people.

in a recent sermon, mark driscoll perfectly identified the folly of my thinking (watch it here). he pointed out how silly it would have been if mary said that she was “just” a mother and hadn’t accomplished much. she birthed and raised God! if that wasn’t enough, she birthed and raised some of the pillars of the early church, including the writers of two books of the bible (james and jude).

however, we live in a culture that says we need to accomplish a lot and change the world, and figure out how to fit having kids into that. the reality is that motherhood IS one of the main ways God has ordained for women to impact that world.

this was one of my main objections to motherhood previously... i wanted to live and i wanted to experience and accomplish a lot before i would tie myself down to such a thing.

“behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward.” Psalm 127:3

“older women …are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children” titus 2:3-4

just like submission is humbling, so will be motherhood. i wont be getting a paycheck and i wont have a work schedule… it will be 24/7. i will be changing many many diapers and cleaning up spit up.

but in many ways i know that God has designed me for motherhood, and i am excited that there is no expectation from Him (or Alex) that i should have any kind of career outside of raising our kids. i’m looking forward to being a mom, which is good because we may have the opportunity to adopt sometime early next year!