A Quiver Full

When I became a Christian, as a young adult, one of my first convictions was to give up taking birth control. As I was learning to value myself as a woman of God, this was not a difficult choice for me. Birth control had made seeking love in all the wrong places easy. So, the thought of giving it up was not a problem. I saw it as a part of my commitment to love myself and to trust God for my future.

I always wanted to be a mom, but never did I think I would have 10 children, three generations, but God! The journey of trusting Him with my body has been eventful to say the least. I’ve been pregnant 12 times and I birthed nine boys and one girl. Our oldest child and our youngest child are almost twenty years apart.

It has always been our desire for our children to be close. Usually when you have a big family the younger ones don’t know the older siblings. Walter and I do our best to keep our children involved in each other’s lives. When the first generation was young and they were all growing up in our home, we encouraged their love and support of one another as we homeschooled them all together. Throughout each day they learned how to relate to one another as they did their daily tasks together as a family.

As they got older we would take the younger ones to the events and activities of their older siblings. We then encouraged the older children to volunteer or work at the younger children’s sports events and activities. We’ve also always had family dinner every Sunday to encourage them to come together once a week for conversations over a meal.

With all of this effort, as the children grew up there was no guarantee that they would embrace and continue this “togetherness” lifestyle with their siblings. By God’s grace, as our children began to leave home they have each chose to visit us and the children that are with us regularly. Even as they have gone to college, and started businesses and careers they have embraced Walter, their younger siblings and myself.

As we are training our last three children. It is common for their older siblings to drop by to spend time with them or to take them to play basketball or football. Along the way they talk to them, showing interest in their lives and giving them wisdom and encouragement. It blesses our heart to see such intimacy amongst the three generations of our children. Though we prayed much and did our best to remind them that a brother is born for adversity and that each of them is a gift to the other, we were not sure if their relationships would flourish unto adulthood. Oh, how grateful we are to witness the blessing of their authentic love and support for one another. We pray it will carry on all of their days.