Does Having Too Many Children Steal Your Life?

For some reason, today's "enlightened" woman feels like she can only handle a few children. They are expensive, time consuming, and exhausting. She desperately "wants" a life and too many children would steal that life she craves.

I have watched the Duggars with 19 children, the Bates with 19 children, and another family in Colorado with many children who live in a large trailer type home. I have read about the journals of a mother in Illinois who lives in a trailer on a homestead with an amazing marriage and all nine of her children are growing up walking with Jesus. When Alyssa was with Ballet Magnificat in Mississippi, she would bump into many homeschooling families with many children and tell me they were the most well-behaved children. One of her ballet friends who came from a very large family was the most generous, kind person she had ever met.

Erin from Keeper Of The Homestead has five children, keeps a very clean home, home schools her children, runs a homestead and a successful blog, and helps others in need yet lives in daily physical pain. Also, at the young age of 32, she found out she could no longer have any more children and she grieved. She knew it was a privilege to have children and raise them for the Lord.

The majority of these families do not have a lot of family around to support them. What I have noticed about them, however, is that the Lord always provides for them. They are well-nourished, body and soul. The husbands and wives work hard and raise children that are not afraid to work.

We think that if we don't do it our way {have only a few children in our timing}, we won't be happy {have lots of free time to do as we please}. We forget our purpose in life is to be living sacrifices and live lives that bring glory to the Lord. Having children and raising them in the nurture and admonition of the Lord is glorifying to Him.

Kelly Crawford is a mother of ten children. She has a blog which is one of my very favorite blogs. She doesn't write often but when she does, they are very good. She recently wrote about the misconceptions that other people have about mothers who have many children. One of the main misconceptions I hear is that they must be "superwoman" and have an abundance of energy. Her answer ~

Not at all. None of those things. From my vantage point, I’d say one reason the Lord has given me 10 children is because I need such a constant lesson in patience. We haven’t been given anything extraordinary that helps us cope with a passel of children. We just rely on fall desperately upon God’s grace and take one day at a time. And like any other circumstance, we do the next thing, figuring out what works as we go.

God speaks about a man that has many children this way ~

Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.
 Psalm 127:5

God thinks having many children is a good thing, a very good thing. If He views this as something good, we should also and depend upon His strength and His provision to be able to love and care for these little eternal beings that He blesses us with.

***This article states that there are groups that want to get rid of the Duggar's show on television because they stand up for Truth. Please sign this petition to keep them on television and their right to stand for traditional marriage.