"Answered Prayers!"

(Wow, 3 posts in three days. Pretty amazing for me! Elijah is doing well, and is enjoying pushing the limits a bit. :-) But, he actually gave me a kiss the other night w/o prompting when I came home from 4-H with the big kids. It was a bit of a headbutt with a raspberry, but I'll take it! So precious! Ok, onto the real subject of this post...)

"Answered Prayers" --- "Stow-away" --- "Be Careful What You Pray For" :-) --- "Filling Up the Van" --- "Bringing Home Two" --- "God's Timing is Perfect" --- "Trust Me"

These are titles for this post that I've had floating around in my head for the past couple of months, but I decided "Answered Prayers" was probably the most accurate.  Yesterday, I shared Noah's story and how we prayed and prayed about bringing him home with Elijah. God said, "No, I have another family for him." And He does! Well, it didn't stop there. We (ok, mostly me) prayed and prayed about bringing home a different second child...Tori, Anastaysia (who both are going home with Burmans in a week or so - YAY!), Sergey (who still desperately needs a family), and baby Christopher (who will be Masha's brother - YAY!). For each of them, God said, "No, that is not your child. Trust me. Trust me."  "Ok, Lord, I will. But my heart is breaking for these kids. My heart is longing for a second child."  We continued to trust.

Well, the Lord did answer that prayer about bringing home a second child - just in a very unique way. You see...we did bring home a second child...a little "stow-away"!  And this one was a whole lot less paperwork than Elijah was...a whole lot cheaper too! :-)  Yes, I am pregnant!!!  I'm 15 weeks along or so, and due September 1st..  We just told the kids on Sunday, and oh my - are they excited!!! (Well, Sarah (12) figured it out quite a while ago.) They were literally jumping up and down with excitement. Anna (8) and Rebekah (4) were constantly asking to "see" the baby (my bump) the next day. Very precious! I'm so grateful they have learned that children are not a liability and a burden as much of society would have us believe, but instead they are a TRUE BLESSING from the Lord.

Psalm 127:3-4 (KJV) - "Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth."

I will fully admit that I was pretty overwhelmed at the thought of adding a 7th child the first week we got home. But the Lord reminded me that this child was not going to be born tomorrow and that His timing is perfect. And in His perfect timing, I didn’t start feeling nauseated until I was home from EE for a few days. It would have not been a pleasant 30 hour trip home otherwise.  Life will not be easy with a 7th child. I know that. But the Lord has continued to "prune" activities out of my life. Right now, my "life" is my children. The Lord has called me to that and I am honored to be given the privilege of "training them in the way they should go". I feel there is no higher calling for me.

And there's more...I really do feel like the Lord is preparing my heart for this baby to have Down syndrome as well. And guess what? I’m perfectly ok with that! I mean really, we chose it once. It will be ok! In fact, I will be really surprised if he/she doesn’t. That would be fine too of course. I had a nice long discussion with my midwife (that delivered Rachel) about it at my first appointment, and she is really excited for us. So, if you think of this precious little one, please join me in praying that his/her heart will be formed perfectly healthy, along with other “systems” that are sometimes affected by Ds (GI in particular). Thank you so much for your prayers!! We are really excited to see how the Lord is going to work all of this out. And who ever said that Believers lead boring lives??? Ha! Not me!

I do fully understand and recognize that our decision to have another baby may not be well received by everyone, but that’s ok. We have believed for a long time that we would surrender this part of our lives over to the Lord.  He is the Author of Life. So far, some of our family has been happy for us and supportive, some have not. But, like I said, that's ok. That's their choice. All that matters is that we are trying to walk in obedience to our Lord Jesus Christ. We are thrilled and our kids are thrilled. The Lord has truly blessed us.

Thanks so much for your continued prayers! (Prayers for a cool summer would be great too! LOL) We really, really appreciate it!

By the way, don't you think these two cuties will make a great big brother and big sister?!?!

Yep! I think so too! :-)