My three, for now...

Only God could have known and planned our family. As I look back to my days of longing for a home full of children, I’m grateful for His timing. I don’t understand exactly why children come when they do. Some are surprises, and some wait with longing for years and years. Some go through loss after loss. It doesn’t make sense to me, but it does make me grateful. I look at them, fully aware they are a gift and a reward I don’t deserve and did nothing to earn. I think scripture puts it perfectly:

PSALM 127
1 Unless the Lord builds a house,
    the work of the builders is wasted.
Unless the Lord protects a city,
    guarding it with sentries will do no good.
2 It is useless for you to work so hard
    from early morning until late at night,
anxiously working for food to eat;
    for God gives rest to his loved ones.

3 Children are a gift from the Lord;
    they are a reward from him.
4 Children born to a young man
    are like arrows in a warrior’s hands.
5 How joyful is the man whose quiver is full of them!
    He will not be put to shame when he confronts his accusers at the city gates.

There are a lot of things you can work for in this life, but ultimately God has to be the builder and sustainer. We get to work to build a house and labor as we make use of our life. God gives us rest in all of it. It’s vain without him…but children…we can’t “work harder” and “put in the time” for them. They are purely a blessing. It’s something that can’t be explained or reasoned. He gives. They come. And so I treasure the ones God has given to me. They are a reward I receive completely apart from work I can do.