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We did listen to bad advice in the beginning. The two silhouettes represent the two the Lord might have given us had we not said “no” to Him. Unfortunately that advice came not only from the ungodly, but from Christian parents, aunts, uncles, doctors, all of them Christians. Their advice was to use “the” pill which to our dismay we later learned is an abortifacient i.e. it causes abortions. |
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It makes my stomach sick to think that parents choose to abort 92% of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome. No, if we had listened to modern thoughts and opinions our baby boy, our sweet loving vibrant fun best behaved baby would definitely not be here. |
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At this point in our lives the medical establishment has a term for my wife because she is older than 35 and has had 7 children: The phrase is “elderly great grand multipara”. I only found 2 results when searching the internet for that phrase. No, if we has listened to the doctor’s scare tactics our sweet beautiful baby girl would be missing. My wife had also worked hard and lost a lot of weight, but thankfully she did not use the fear of gaining it back to say no to God. |
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With 6 children we had filled up our 8 passenger van. No room even for Grandma. Many people use the excuse of vehicle space to deny another blessing from God. We opted to get a 15-passenger van. If we had used that excuse our loving affectionate happy fourth little girl would have never existed. Also just before her conception my employer told me that I was getting laid off at the end of the year. Finances are common reason people refuse God’s blessings. I am glad we choose to trust in God’s Providence as He has been more than faithful. |
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Many people choose not to have any more after a hard birth. That would have been our third girl. Also, our 3 youngest girls are too close together, at least according to our current culture (3 births in 39 months). They are best friends now and I think they will be throughout life. |
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Before our third son my wife had two miscarriages, and after the second she hemorrhaged which resulted in an ambulance ride to the hospital. We received much well-meaning advice from friends and family to use birth control, if not to stop permanently to at least take a break and space our children out even further. The situation scared us to death but we clung to believing the Bible that children are a blessing and left control with God. A month after the second miscarriage our third son was given to us. |
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Three is the largest number of children to stay political correct and culturally accepted in today’s society. Even three can get odd looks and only crazy people have more than three. I did not think we would have more children. But God used the Above Rubies ministry to influence my wife, then my wife to influence me and though I was stubborn I could not get past the Bible saying children were a blessing. It was at this point we decided to give control of our fertility to God and trust him to also provide all that we needed financially, mentally, emotionally, logistically, etc. |
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I don’t know how many times various people informed us that with one boy and one girl we now had the “Perfect” family. And of course after informing us of that indisputable fact the “Are you going to stop?” interrogation began. Also our house has only three bedrooms which many parents would consider a good reason to stop so no one gets crowded. |
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We sure are glad we live in the land of the free because if we lived in China this might have been the size of our family. Our country has become the home of not-so-brave though as fecundophobia drives birth rates to record lows in our country, below even replacement levels. Students of history predict we will now enter a demographic winter as a shrinking population base struggles to support the larger generations that came before it. |
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Many couples are choosing to live Childfree (childless by choice) these days. We sure can understand this temptation because having just one child took away our “freedom”, and I for one was not even sure I really wanted children. I certainly did not want them when I was young. Makes me think of this quote which ends telling us a child is a “much more beautiful, wonderful, amusing and astonishing thing than any of the stale stories or jingling jazz tunes turned out by the machines.” Children are a blessing we were ignorant of until we had our first. |
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At this point you might think we are proud of ourselves. We are not. Who knows how many conceptions the abortifacient pill claimed in the beginning and I believe we are probably missing two in our family because of our choice to not trust God until after our third child. From that point on we have done nothing except let God be God and trust in His Word. As A. W. Pink says in A Fourfold Salvation “our repentance and faith…possess no merits whatever”. We hope sharing our story will encourage others to put their faith and hope in our Creator who is faithful and true and desires to bless His children with children. |
Statistics calculated using 2012 Census data tables F and H.
righttome.com 
Thank you so much for sharing this. You have no idea how much it means to me. I too have a one month after miscarriage child who is the bubbliest and liveliest one of our family. I was told to prevent her due to the facts that I almost died and I was anemic after my loss. We didn’t listen. Funny thing is just after her conception I was healed of
anemia.
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What a wonderful testimony Janine. If you had listened to fear instead of acting on faith what a blessing you might have missed! We praise God for your healing and His Providence in your life.
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So proud of you guys for standing up to all of the bullies that are out there trying to force Christians to keep their families small. We took 8 months to conceive, but after that we had 4 kids when our oldest turned 5. We took a lot of flack, and people thought it was funny to tease us that we didn’t know how this was happening. I didn’t think it was funny. We wanted lots of kids.
We had 6 infertile years and then we had a wonderful baby boy. Now we’ve had 9 infertile years.
People think that if you give God the choice for how many children you will have, that you will have tons of kids. We have 5. Yes, that is a lot for most people. But we tell our friends we ‘only’ have 5. And we will always take more. In fact, my kids tell me all the time they want a baby around the house. I remind them they are asking the wrong person. (And point upwards)
Both sets of my grandparents had children into their upper 40’s. They had many children, some who did not survive childhood. But that didn’t stop them from having more and loving all of them!
We love our children! They are certainly a GREAT blessing to us!
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Wow, Judy, if you and your husband had listened to those people giving you grief and spaced out your children you might have refused two or three of the five children given to you. No way to know for certain but I don’t think God is obligated to give out rain-checks if we refuse a blessing. He is merciful though and extends grace to all who would repent, but we have to live with the consequences of our choices.
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I enjoyed this post. We were just recently blessed with #5, who was conceived a month after my third miscarriage. He is just 2 months old, but already I cannot fathom our lives without him. I look at my family of 7, and it doesn’t seem all that large to me.
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Thank you Erin. Aren’t you glad you did not listen to conventional “wisdom” now!
But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy. – James 3:17
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