Children Are A Gift

 Behold, children are a gift of the LORD,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.--Psalm 127:3

I can remember the 9 painful months it took for us to get pregnant with Julia.  It just wasn't happening soon enough for me at all.  John was so patient.  He always is.  But me, I was STRESSED.  Why God? Why I asked.  I mean we were married for 4 years.  We had recently bought a new, bigger home with enough bedrooms for children...we were READY, didn't God know how ready we were?

But in His sovereignty I didn't get pregnant til Spring of '07...and everyone was pregnant in my world, everyone had these enormous baby bellies, and I was so envious...I just wanted a baby already!  When we finally got pregnant and I took the first pregnancy test at home I left it on the bathroom counter and didn't even tell John, I didn't want to get my hopes up, I was sure it was a mistake, I probably had a faulty test.  But John came home from work and when he saw that test, Oh, I wish you could've seen his face!  He made me smile.  We couldn't stop smiling.  I took another test in the morning with the same result and then I scheduled our first doctor's appointment.  Wow, I was going to be a mom.

It was then that I understood that children were a gift.  Not everyone had them.  Not everyone wanted them.  They were a gift from God and just like any gift ours to handle with care.  But a baby is even more than I could imagine at that point until she was in my arms.  The accountability and responsibility and the long arduous hours of self sacrificing love.

I can still remember Julia coming home and in the first week she had a clogged tear duct which looked like pink eye and she kept sneezing, and I was certain I had gotten my baby sick.  I cried when we brought her to the doctor.  They were like, "Lady get a grip, she doesn't have pink eye and she's sneezing because newborns clear their sinuses that way."  BUT she was my baby, my responsibility and I wanted to do a good job.  Everything mattered.  Everything was important.  Here I was in charge of this little sweet tiny person.

After I had Mark, and we went through the trauma of hospital visits (boys will be boys) and experienced the "joys of stitches" I began to learn that Children are a Gift and children are fragile, and that God loves my child more than I do.  I don't even know how that's possible but I KNOW it to be true.  God cares and loves and has the best intentions for Julia and Mark and when I am panicking over a fever, or a scratch, or a sickness, He is right there caring for us all, strengthening us as parents and being tender and near to my child.  
Psalm 127:3  Behold, children are a gift of the LORD,
The fruit of the womb is a reward.

Just think God took the time to knit us all in our mothers womb.  Have you ever knitted anything before?  When I hear that verse I think of the time, effort, and skill one must have to know how to knit, and I think of God carefully knitting together each of us and our children inside our wombs.  Whoa, doesn't it just blow your mind?

 Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being;

    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

Children are a gift from the Lord, He loves them even more than we do and he knit us all in our mother's womb.  I think that makes all of us pretty amazing beings.  We are created in His image and for His glory.

And I think being a mom is one of my most important and sacred jobs, right up there with being the best wife possible to my husband.  These verses were to remind us today to praise our God for our children and his handiwork and to treat our children like the gifts they are...