A woman posed this request: “I was just wondering how others decided that their family was complete and you finished having any more babies.”

After having three babies in less than four years (no twins!) I felt pretty “complete” and was not at all interested in being pregnant again any time soon. I was also in a season of struggle, fighting depression, failing in my roles as wife and mother, thoughts of suicide, life in a new area far from friends, family, or support systems, overweight and unhealthy.

I also had a list of other things that I felt were more important that I couldn’t do while pregnant or dragging infants and small children around all the time. In a way, I felt like I was compromising my health and wasting my life away by being pregnant and nursing all the time.  What about Quality vs. Quantity?

I approached the marriage bed with panic for fear of getting pregnant again. We tried barrier contraception but it caused me a lot of pain. Other methods were not an option, especially since I was still nursing and hadn’t had my return of cycles yet.  In lieu of abstinence I cried out to God for a solution, “Lord!  Please help us! What contraception should we use!?” 

He answered, “Trust Me.” That was not the answer I wanted. The last time I trusted God I got pregnant right away, and I wasn’t interested in being tricked into that again. I griped back to the Lord, “Aren’t my reasons good enough for You?”  But who am I to argue with God?  After some deliberation I decided to trust Him again and do nothing to prevent a pregnancy.

After my first two babies were born I got my cycles back when they were three months old.  Imagine my delight when five months had passed and I still wasn’t menstruating or pregnant!  My period came back at six months and seven months and I was rejoicing! 

It sure was worth it to trust the Lord!  I celebrated by taking a late Spring excursion to an amusement park to ride roller coasters all day while I still had the chance. I was supposed to get my period that day, but it never came. Two days later I took a home test and found out I was pregnant again.

I was so mad!  Shaking my fist at the Lord I yelled, "You told me to trust You, and I DID! Now look what You've done! Why do You insist on keeping me down and miserable? You are NOT the God I thought You were!"

No He wasn't! So tell me, who's problem is that?

As evil as it sounds, and as evil as it truly is, deep down inside I was half hoping for a miscarriage. I felt horrible, my life was a mess, I hated everything and everyone, I was seeing a counselor, my circumstances only got worse, and I just wanted to end it all!

But as I went along I accepted my pregnancy and dealt with it, holding on to the only shred of truth that I could: that God told me to trust Him, and I obeyed. Somehow He is going to work it out. He has to!  There’s no other hope!

As the months progressed I pondered all that I had learned but not yet accepted. It says in the Bible, "Like arrows in the hands of a warrior so are the children of one's youth. Happy is he who's quiver is full of them." I was sitting with a group of ladies one day discussing birth control--one with a vasectomized husband, no family size larger than three children. The agreement was that their quiver was full for them.

"Six children might be a full quiver for you. My fill line is at three!"

I piped up and said, "Well, if I were out in the woods when suddenly surrounded by a violent grizzly bear four times my size ready to eat me up in one gulp, I would want more than three arrows in my quiver to fight him off. In fact, I'd want as many as I could get!"

I know many older families who stopped at three children because they decided their family was complete with that many. Three beautiful young adults, all in a row, praising the Lord, standing up against abortion, encouraging youth, and doing mighty things for Jesus. If they hadn't stopped at three there could have been twice, or maybe even three times the amount of children in their family added to the Army of God.

When the next generation of children rises up to run my country and make decisions on my behalf, and on behalf of my children, grandchildren, and so on—a generation of God-less, self- indulgent, misdirected, unloved, spoiled rotten, traumatized, numb, lazy, video-gaming, immature, fatherless children with little sense of moral obligation—how many God-fearing, Christian young adults would I want to balance it out?

Should I contribute only three, stop there, and then carry on with my life of vanity and grasping for the wind? Or should I look beyond my limited, present view, and make an investment into the future of generations that will follow after me?

The Lord said: Lean not on your own understanding. Once I finally laid aside what I thought was right for me, He had opportunity to put in what was right according to Him!

Now I hug my tummy and bless the Lord for this pregnancy. I sure wasn't thanking Him the first four months! But I was obedient. And in the end I'm so thankful I didn't make the mistake of ending it all (not just my life, but the lives of future children).

In the heat of hopelessness, we make very unwise choices. They that wait on the Lord will renew their strength!

Did the United States only train up 1,000 soldiers? Or did we not become the strongest military in the world, with hundreds of thousands of able men? As a military family I see where our military is going from an insider's perspective.

Even the military is buying in to “Sangerism” by scrapping ships, shutting down military bases, selling off their military housing to private management, and even paying some servicemen to leave to downsize areas that seem too full. All this in the name of “saving money.” But the military is birth-controlling and aborting itself into weakness. And so is God's church.

After sharing my testimony with the woman who asked for personal experience, in closing I said: So that's my story about me deciding when my family was complete! Probably not exactly what you were hoping to hear. Join the club!

ANGELA SUNDARAMURTHY

  
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