“Be careful what you wish for” or “God has a plan for you?”
I have pondered this age old question many times in my life, just as I am sure most people have. When I was young I wanted nothing more than to be a mother. I played with dolls until I had babies of my own, I babysat every weekend, and infants and toddlers were always my favorite. When asked what I planned to do after high school, I would reply, “Be a mother.” Of course, just like most parents, my parents had higher goals for me in mind than that. It isn’t that they didn’t want me to be a mother, but they wanted me to be an educated mother.
I entered college, and the only occupation that appealed to me was education, so I became an Elementary Education major.I was already married by the time I started college, and by half way through my second semester, I found out I was pregnant with our first child. I was so thrilled, but a little scared too. Not afraid of being a mom, but of letting my parents down by not finishing my education first. This was going to be just a little detour to my education and I would just take one year off while my first child was a baby.
My husband and I had talked at length about children,and since he was nine years my senior, we knew that we wanted to start our family as soon as possible, so this baby was what both of us wanted. This was to be the first child of the four children we wanted. We wanted them close in age so that they could grow up together.
God knew our plan, and decided to help us out. After having our first child in November, I started plans to go back to college the following August. God had different plans. In April I found out that I was pregnant again. Once again I was worried about what my parents would say, but they knew of my love for children and that I would make sure that I received an education in time. Our son was born in December, just thirteen months after his sister.
When I returned to college two years later, I had a little girl and boy at home that I knew were counting on me to take care of them for the rest of their lives, so I attacked school with a vengeance. I worked hard to receive the best grades I could and took summer school to make the actual years in school fewer. I will be the first to admit it wasn’t the easiest way to go through college, but when my babies were four and five years old, I graduated with my B.S. in Education.
I wanted to find a job in our town as I knew this was where I would be living the rest of my life, and it was very important to me to work where my kids attended school, and where I would hopefully make an impact on the children in our community. After subbing for five years, I finally got a job in town.
Since it had taken so long for me to find the perfect job, my husband and I had decided that two children were just what we needed. We had a girl and a boy and life was good. There would be too large of an age span in the kids if we had more now, and the kids were soon going to be in Jr. High which would keep us very busy. The idea of having four children was long forgotten.
As any family knows, life goes by too fast. Before we knew it, we would soon be looking at two children graduating, one right after the other. This also meant two children leaving for college in quick succession. We were concerned about the costs we would be looking at for two in college, but we really hadn’t put much thought into the empty nest that would soon be coming our way.
“Be careful what you wish for,” or “God has a plan for you?”
As our children were ending their Junior and Sophomore years, our lives were completely changed forever.
On Memorial Day weekend of 1997, we found out that our 17 year old daughter was pregnant. This is not news that any parent wants to hear, but at this point in life, you do what you have to do. Our daughter had hidden this from us for seven months, so we only had two months to come to terms with what the future held for all of our family. Our daughter did not want to keep the baby, and wanted to put it up for adoption.There were many things that went on, but my post would be pages long if I went into all that here, so I will save that for another day. My husband and I decided to adopt this baby, and soon we had our third child.
This still wasn’t the four that we had long ago talked about having, and definitely not the way we planned to have our family, but God gave us a very special gift when our second daughter was born. We had to learn our parenting skills again, and believe me, a lot had changed in sixteen years. Before long it was like she had always been in our lives, and once again our family seemed complete.
“Be careful what you wish for,” or “God has a plan for you?”
We had been married for 25 years, and our baby was finally entering school. We were back into the routine of school life, and our oldest two children were doing good in life. We had a granddaughter and grandson by our oldest daughter, our son was graduating from college, and life was good. Then, we found out I was pregnant again. This isn’t suppose to happen to a forty-three year old woman, but it had. I was more afraid to tell my parents about this pregnancy than I had been 23 years ago. Oh, I now had my education (I had even gone on to get my M.S. in Education) and I had a good job that I had had for 15 years, it was the fact that I was OLD that made me afraid to tell them.
I was extremely concerned about the health of this baby, as risks rise the older you are. I didn’t tell anyone I was pregnant until I was five months along, and even then I didn’t talk about it much. Until I was holding a healthy little baby in my arms, I didn’t want to think about it. One month before I turned 44 I was blessed with a beautiful, healthy, little boy…my long awaited 4th child.
“Be careful what you wish for,” or “God has a plan for you?”
I choose “God has a plan for you,” because I know that God is the only one that could have given us four beautiful children, each in their own time. I am so grateful and blessed with the family that I have, and I know that no one but God is responsible for that.
the life I lead 