“He grants the barren woman a home, like a joyful mother of children.
Praise the LORD!” Psalm 113:9
It’s hard to believe that a whole month has gone by since my last post! Thank you for all the wonderful congratulations. I have wished that I could reply to each person, but my hands have literally been full most of the time, and it is hard to type one-handed. My little baby girl will be 8 weeks old on Friday, and is already changing from being a newborn. Oh, she still sounds like a newborn, but she is very interested in what is going on around her, and those big, beautiful smiles are something that we all work very hard to get. ;-)
Even though she weighed 8 pounds at birth, she looked more like she weighed about 6 pounds. (Even the medical people thought so!) For someone who is used to 10+ pound babies, it’s been a new experience to have such a tiny one! She had us concerned for a few weeks, as she lost about 12% of her birth weight in the first few days, and then didn’t get back up to her birth weight until she was about 5 weeks. There were several trips to the lactation consultant and pediatrician for weight checks, but she finally did start to gain and outgrow all of those newborn clothes that had been too big on her. She is still in newborn diapers, though – something that my other children hardly used at all!
Since my first child was on the way by the time I had been married for two months, I have never been someone who would be considered a “barren woman”. However, the Lord HAS given me the blessing of being a “joyful mother of children”! I was having my car inspected today and was sitting in the busy mechanics’ lobby with the baby, when a lady asked whether or not this was my first baby. Of course, she was surprised when I replied that it was my 8th baby, but the lady sitting next to her looked at me and, almost in a hostile tone, asked, “Why?”
I have never before been asked “why” when people have found out that I have several children, so I was speechless for a moment. Then, I simply responded that it was because I have been blessed. And, truly, that is the way I feel. I won’t deny that I’m not always joyful, or that there aren’t days when I wish I could put the children on the schoolbus and have a few hours of quiet. I won’t deny that there are times when the tears are rolling down my face and I’m the one asking the Lord “why”! However, it is much more frequent that I look around at my children and feel richly blessed. My children really do bring me joy!
Well, my latest bundle of joy is exhibiting signs of being tired of being held by her big sister and wanting Mommy, so I will have to finish this another time. I’ll try to make sure that it is not such a long time before I post again!
