Why aren't you having kids yet?
When are you going to have a baby?
Do you want a baby?
These questions have been asked quite often over the last few months. I usually don't mind them, but some people seem to have difficulty understanding that my husband and I would like to wait a while before having children. If I'm being quite honest, a baby is truly the last thing in the world I want right now. Yes, I understand that being fruitful, multiplying and filling the earth is God's design. I also understand that God has designed me as His daughter to be a mother, a nurturer and teacher of children, just as my own mother has been to me. There is no greater role for a woman and no higher aspiration that any woman could have. (And personally, I believe that all wives and mothers should earn six figures. That's what they deserve, anyway. :)
Here is the heart of the matter: there are thousands of children in the foster care system in America. About 9,000 children were in the Colorado foster care system a few years ago due to parental abuse or neglect.A significant number of these children are waiting for adoption. Many turn 18 without being adopted into a permanent, legal family. These young people are at much higher risk for homelessness and drug and alcohol abuse.
These children have faces and names. Some of them have been screamed at, hit, burned with cigarettes and irons, molested, raped, neglected and manipulated. Some of them have raised themselves and their younger siblings. These children have experienced pain, heartbreak and suffering that most of us will never fully understand.
Why don't I want children now? Because these children are waiting. These children have been through unspeakable horrors and need someone to love them. They need a father and a mother, especially ones who know Christ as their Savior and live for Him. They need stability, love, forgiveness, and healing.
Do I realize that foster care and adoption will be difficult? Yes. Each child has his or her own set of issues, baggage from the past, and scars from mental, emotional or physical abuse. Does this lessen the need that these children have? Should these difficulties and future heartaches for my husband and I shrink our hearts and desire to love these children? Absolutely not.
There are thousands of children ALREADY BORN who desperately need Jesus Christ and need parents. That is why I do not want to have a baby right now.
---To all of you who are pregnant or have children, I praise God for you and each of your children! God designed us to have children. I simply believe that fostering, adopting AND having my own children from my body is what God wants for me--- and He could certainly change my heart and my husband's heart at any time. Blessings on you all.
