Blessings

As my family grows and grows, it is occurring to me more and more that I'm not really the one making all this new life happen.

Nor is my wife. I'm not speaking about the biology here. I'm talking about the creation of a new, living soul who would not have existed but for our openness to life.

Some years ago I was talking to my paternal grandmother, who had seven children. I thanked her for her openness, as I truly enjoy knowing my aunts, uncles, and cousins who would not have existed without the choices she made. Her marriage to my grandfather fell apart after their children were grown, and I also thanked her sticking it out with him for as long as she did. I didn't know him well, but my understanding is that he was somewhat of a brute, although he mellowed somewhat in his last years.

She told me that if she had gotten to know him better before marrying him, she never would have gone through with it.

Of course, the ramifications of that near-decision would have been significant throughout the cascading generations, culminating in - GASP - no Convert Man blog! But we can't undo our past, and I confessed that while I understood her sentiment, I was nevertheless happy that things had worked out the way they did. I enjoy existing, after all. Me, my brothers and sister, my cousins, my uncles, my aunts, my parents, my kids, my nieces and nephews... probably close to 80 individual people would not have come to draw breath had she had made a different choice.

How mysterious are the ways of God! For he orchestrates our lives and guides us to his perfect will, and continually adapts his plans for us when we stray from his original revised tweaked reconfigured adjusted plans for us, over and over again.

So here I am - with four kids drawing breath, one little saint in Heaven, and one percolating in the grand decanter that is my wife's womb - wondering how it all comes to be. As my blessings increase, I marvel in them. Each life that God sends my way is a solemn charge, and I am so very weak in so many things, yet he obviously knows I'm capable because he keeps sending me more blessings.

Lord, give me your wisdom and your strength!