Family

This might be a bit of a random post but that's alright. Actually, it's a very random post that has little to nothing to do with my time in Australia, it's a bit of a personal post as well.

If you know me well, you know I adore kids and babies, I love them to pieces. During my flight to Australia, I had a connection in LAX and I was able to sit around for a bit to wait for my flight. I proceeded to start a crossword puzzle before a family with a baby and girl around the age of 2, came over to sit down. This 2 year was absolutely adorable; she turned around to loudly proclaim her name to me, at which point I just laughed. Then, she crawled all over the seats (and me) pointing at things and yelling. I was loving every minute (I even got to read her a book); I found out they were on there way for vacation in Brisbane. 30 minutes later, another family came over to join us, this couple had 5 kids all under the age of 9, including a small baby. Again, it was love at first sight for me-these kids were so precious, and so sleepy, snuggled up next to each other. Through conversation, I discovered that this family was not on vacation, rather they were missionaries from Boston returning to Papua New Guinea. I was encouraged by the strength of this couple, traveling halfway across the world with 5 young children, in order to give others life and hope. Can you imagine doing that? I'd like to say that I would be able to.

Watching all these parents and children only made me want to have kids even more, but I've always frequently mulled over the topic of family size. How many kids is too many? Is there such a thing as too many? What about birth control? Could I handle a large family? I believe that children are gifts from God (Psalm 127:3-5), and so right now, I believe that God should determine how many kids I have; that's not an easy thing to say or do though, because that requires me to put all my faith and trust in God and his ability to take care of me, and do what's best for me. I think that God WILL give us more than WE think we can handle, but there is nothing that GOD can't handle. Look at Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar, God has faithfully taken care of that family and they have 19 kids! But I'm almost 100% sure they have days where they get overwhelmed and frustrated and stressed.

I really don't know what my future holds though; I do know that I want to be a wife and mother, and I believe that is a desire God has placed on my heart, but other than that, I'm clueless. Happily and perfectly clueless.

Blog readers, any opinions on the topics and questions I've brought up? I'd love to hear what you have to say!

P.S. Australia is going great! I have had my days though where I've been hot, tired, and frustrated but that comes with the territory of studying abroad :) Anecdotes and pics coming soon.