Bring Back Big Families

My wife is pregnant with our sixth child. After the initial shock has worn off when we tell people that, there’s always some form of the following question that comes right after: don’t you guys know how this works?

It’s the inevitable question I suppose, offered in jest generally, that insinuates lots of different (usually [unintentionally?] derogatory) things, not the least of which is that my wife and I don’t understand where babies come from. We do. But I don’t think everyone else does. Not really anyway.

Sure, we have our part, the physical part. It has to happen, obviously. But what everyone misses is the God part. God has the final say. If he wants us to have another kid, we will have another kid. If not, we won’t. We got married and pledged ourselves to each other, no matter what that meant, kids or no kids. We understand well the act that facilitates the creation. But the actual creation? Well, that’s outside our hands.

And that’s what everybody misses. I know what people really think when they ask that question. I could be offended by it, but it really makes me kind of sad because what they really miss in this whole thing is this: that the second greatest gift God ever gave to man (aside from His only begotten son, obviously), in my humble opinion, is the ability to partake in creation WITH Him. Marriage allows a man and woman to participate in the same creation God started in the Garden of Eden. From when He pulled clay from the earth and breathed life into it, then took a rib from that creation and created woman, to when He banished them and made the woman suffer the pains of creation, He gave man and woman the responsibility, the charge, to procreate. That only happens when a man and woman become married through the physical act of creation.

Every child is the greatest gift of marriage that anyone could ever receive. And that gift comes directly from God through our willingness to partake in creation with Him.

That’s what very few people seem to understand about it. It’s not about us. It’s about us participating in and submitting to His plan. How small of us to think we’re in “control” of any aspect of pregnancy. That, to me, is a simple view focused on this world only. It’s as simple as that.

So, yeah. To answer that question, we know exactly how this works.

So this Christmas Eve, it’s worth reflecting on the gift of parenthood and the greatest gift of marriage. Anyone reading this today (or whenever) is the result of that gift. That’s worth remembering and celebrating as we celebrate the ultimate birth at Christmas.