Baby You Are Most Wanted!

In December I read a posting on one of my favorite blogs, on how wanted this 3rd baby was, the first after a vasectomy reversal.  It really touched my heart!

This week everything we did was centered around the preparation for our little baby, who is due to arrive very soon! As I pondered on what we had accomplished during the week, I realized how wanted this Baby is!  Every one in this house of nine is playing, working and planning around the reality of a baby who will soon enter our lives!  Little Daniel (17months) would sit next to me, due to a lack of space on my lap, tap on my tummy and say: “Baby!”  Andrew (4 1/2 years) will tell me numerous times during the day how much he loves this baby.  Danika (6years) and David (3years) constantly asks me how many nights before baby is due.  Josua and CJ are looking out for me constantly, not allowing me to do any heavy duty work and ready to help. Heidi-Mari is always checking on me physically, reminding me to go and rest a little, bathing the little ones, finishing a meal or making my bed! Christo is currently driving us  everywhere we need to be and want to be, as I experience heavy contractions if I drive. He even does all the shopping for the house, in between a very busy schedule at work!

This baby is most wanted!  Every one is looking forward to his/her arrival in great anticipation.  Last weekend I realized that I still needed to do a lot before this baby could arrive.

On Monday morning CJ and I re-organized the main bedroom. Partly because the main bedroom will also serve as the delivery room.  We need to create space for the birth pool, but mainly because my nesting instinct is motivating me to spring clean every single space in the house!  We also needed to clean and re-organize my dressing room, as it is also my store room for sewing projects and clothes not currently being used.  Over the past few months, everything that had no specific place, was dropped in my dressing room.

On Monday afternoon we finished sorting out all the boxes of newborn clothes packed away from previous babies. Over the past few years we accumulated quite a lot of baby clothes so Heidi-Mari and Danika had a ball looking through everything. They had a hard time deciding what clothes are still soft and new enough for our newborn baby, while I was resting on the bed and and I even fell asleep at one stage.

On Tuesday we washed everything.  I didn’t know there were so many, until I saw the washing line.  Since we don’t know if baby is a boy or a girl we are prepared with blue, pink, white, yellow and green clothes, blankets and towels!  Many of the pink stuff, had been accumulated during the past 5 years, since we had no baby girls!

On Tuesday afternoon Christo took me and the girls to Tygervalley Centre to get some last minute stuff for baby.  The girls was looking forward to this afternoon for weeks!  Danika just wanted to buy everything pink she could lay her eyes on! CJ and Josua looked after the 3 boys and prepared dinner!

By Wednesday my nesting instinct was in overdrive and we spring cleaned the bedroom of the 4 boys!  Now, my boys, are REAL boys.  They don’t know how to keep a room tidy - especially David (3years) and Andrew (4 1/2 years) - most of their toys are underneath their pillows or under their beds! My big boys struggle to keep their bathroom clean and they find it most difficult to keep their horse riding equipment separate from their beds and closets.  So Heidi-Mari and I dug into their room, while Josua and Danika played with the little ones - preferably in another room or outside, since there is no way to clean a room and sort out junk when the owners of the junk are in the vicinity!  CJ went to the horse riding school to check on Silverball and arrived back just in time to move everything (beds and closets) back to where they belong! It is so nice to have a strong, young man in the house to move heavy stuff around and make it look like it is as light as a feather!

Over the festive season, Christo and Heidi-Mari took care of all our shopping, but I needed to go to a supermarket myself so Christo picked me up at 15h00.  CJ and Heidi-Mari prepared supper and Josua and Danika played with the little ones, under the supervision of CJ and Heidi-Mari!   I got a little more than the usual groceries, to make sure we would have enough during the first few weeks after baby’s birth!

Thursday morning we headed out to the vegetable garden.  CJ made me a 6th raised bed, filled it with compost and planted grass (taken from the space where the 6th raised bed, now stands) in a dead patch in the back yard!   Heidi-Mari and I planted the 5th raised bed with 2 trays of beans and 8 trays of lettuce!  I’m making sure we’re not running out of lettuce after baby is born!

In the afternoon, I was still not satisfied with deep cleaning the house and started on Daniel’s room, while Heidi-Mari and Danika cleaned their room.  Daniel’s room actually only needed to be dusted and vacuumed. The main work was sorting out toys!  It took me the whole afternoon, since Daniel didn’t want to leave me alone, and as soon as I put a toy in a certain bucket, he would take it out again.

Friday morning Heidi-Mari and I finished planting in the vegetable garden.  We planted four trays of carrots and three trays of tomatoes, in the 6th raised bed.

By now I was exhausted, but still needed to get the boys’ hair cut before baby was born.  So Christo picked us up in the afternoon and drove us to the hairdresser.  

I feel quite satisfied with what we accomplished during this week.  We still need to do a few things, but at least we are getting there. 

I have the tradition to croquet all baby’s receiving blankets.  While I’m croqueting I pray for baby’s safe birth, for the first few weeks of transition in a new routine in the house, for the new dynamics in the house - every member of the family automatically gets new responsibilities and have to adjust to their new position in the family hierarchy. I also pray that God would have a personal appearance to this child at the right time and that he/she would start a relationship with Jesus as his/her personal Savior.

This time Heidi-Mari could help me croquet.  

She does the first layer and I the final, second layer.   We’ve finished three pink and one blue receiving blanket.  

We still need to finish two blue ones and a green one! I love to dress my newborns in green!

This weekend I’m taking it easy. We had friends over for dinner and had a wonderful time of fellowship and encouragement. 

Tomorrow the men will assemble the birth pool and next week we will do the final finishing touches.  Will keep you posted.

What if there is a Drought?

I received a comment on my last posting, Will there be Enough to Feed a Hungry World?, making a comparison between drought and the harvest.  What if there is a drought, no finances, how can you still expect a big harvest, have many children?

I want to say before I answer this question: Many of the remarks and quotes in this posting have the potential to offend.  I am sorry if it offends you, the Truth can offend people! Jesus’ truths offended many people during his three years of ministry on earth. We must however not be offensive in our delivery of a possible offending truth.

I could immediately answer the question out of my own experience. During the past 7 years, since we started ‘sowing with the purpose of a plentiful harvest’ by giving over how many children and the age-gap between the children to the Lord, I’ve had countless personal testimonies of God’s Faithfulness in providing enough rain for our ‘little seeds”. But that is my experience and my opinion and that is only my testimony and not worth much if you are in a different situation. We believe strongly that our opinion is as worthless as yours, if it is not aligned with God’s Word.

So I dug into the Bible!  God’s opinion is timeless and always applicable in every situation!  I love to ask God’s opinion in everything I do, and when He answers me or  gives me an answer out of His Word, go out in faith and do as he says. I once read there is a difference between believing IN God and Believing God.  Even the demons believe IN God, but they don’t BELIEVE God.  The oldest strategy of Satan is to bring doubt in your mind and heart about the trustworthiness of God and His Word!  

“Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree of the garden’?”

2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” 4 Then the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Gen 3:1

Firstly God took me to the Parable of the Sower.

3 Then He spoke many things to them in parables, saying: “Behold, a sower went out to sow. 4 And as he sowed, some seed fell by the wayside; and the birds came and devoured them. 5 Some fell on stony places, where they did not have much earth; and they immediately sprang up because they had no depth of earth. 6 But when the sun was up they were scorched, and because they had no root they withered away. 7 And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up and choked them. 8 But others fell on good ground and yielded a crop: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. 9 He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”….

18 “Therefore hear the parable of the sower: 19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. 20 But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. 22 Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. 23 But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”

Matthew13:18

In this parable it is clear that the reason why there was no harvest was because either Satan would quickly come and sow doubt in your heart and you don’t even try; or lack of endurance in times of tribulation and persecution; or because of cares for this world and the deceitfulness of riches.  When the seed fell in good ground, one who ‘hears the word, understand it’ and believe and go out in faith, he will bear fruit, thirty fold, sixty fold, hundredfold.  I don’t read about plagues when the seed fell in good ground - faith.  The plagues is, just as in nature, because of sin. Thus it is not for us to decide if their is ideal conditions for a harvest or how big the harvest should be, we should go out in faith and sow and leave the rest in the God’s Hands!

Then He reminded me of John 16:33

3 These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”

And Matthew 6:31

31 “Therefore do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

These two above verses reminds us that tribulation and persecution will come.  It is normal that we worry about tomorrow, cares about worldly things, but in all this, God said we must be of ‘good cheer’ and that we should not worry, He has overcome evil, He will always provide, He knows what we need.

That brings me to what do we think we need.  Most of the time our expectations of what we think we need, are different from what God knows we need.  Especially in this modern world, with the media reminding us as many times as we allow them, of what we need to be content. It is really not a need then but a want.

There are so many things our family ‘needs’.  We don’t have a fence in front of our house – giving the children little space to play in a safe environment; we only live in a three bedroom house, with an attached granny flat, which we use for the 4 boys as a bedroom. The second bedroom is the girls room and the third bedroom the baby’s room.  Every time when a new baby is moved out of our room, we have to carefully plan how we will put our children in the available rooms.  We only have a single garage and no “school room” or a study. Our dining room can only fit a round table for 6 people; still we all fit in for breakfast and dinner.  Two years ago we drew up plans to build on an extra room (school room and study), enlarge the dining room, improved the kitchen to cook for a large family and a double garage to give the boys room for all their projects.  We’re still waiting for the finances, we don’t want to go into debt.  We know if God thinks our family needs these ‘improvements’, he will provide it.  At this stage He thinks it is better for our family to live in a smaller house, being more in each others faces, building character!

In my previous posting I testified of how God provided me with an Apple laptop.  I really thought that was a want, not a need.  God clearly differed from me and miraculously, within Christo’s budget, provided me with my heart’s desire. God alwats knows the best.

5 Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” 6 So we may boldly say:

 “The Lord is my helper;

 I will not fear.

Hebrews 13:5

When we became convicted of surrendering my womb to the Lord, we were in a terrible drought!. You can read it in Josua and Danika’s birth-stories.  It was after we’ve experienced God’s miraculous financial provision the year after Danika’s birth, that we’ve start to really seek God’s will in family planning and start to trust God to provide for ‘all the little plants’ He wanted us to grow! We didn’t know if He would give us a thirty fold, sixty fold or hundred fold harvest.

And that reminded me of Deut. 28 (The blessing and curse verses of the Old Testament):

 “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. 2 And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God:

3 “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.

4 “Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.

5 “Blessed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.

6 “Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

7 “The Lord will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before your face; they shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.

8 “The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses and in all to which you set your hand, and He will bless you in the land which the Lord your God is giving you.

Did you notice the level at which God will bless you if you obey His commandments?

First the fruit of your body, only then the produce of you ground and the increase of your herds.  God wants you to first step out in faith and obey His first commandment to the Man and his wife. 

27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

Gen 1:27

On the other hand if you do not observe all His commandments there will be calamity and plagues. You can read it from Deut 28:15.  I especially want to highlight Deut 28:61: 

 "You shall be left few in number, whereas you were as the stars of heaven in multitude, because you would not obey the voice of the Lord your God. 63 And it shall be, that just as the Lord rejoiced over you to do you good and multiply you, so the Lord will rejoice over you to destroy you and bring you to nothing; and you shall be plucked from off the land which you go to possess."

Strong words from a Loving God, but just a few verses before (verse 58) we read:

“that you may fear this glorious and awesome name, THE LORD YOUR GOD,…”

Do we still FEAR our God?  Or did we bring Him down to our level of thinking and understanding?  

Our family can testify of this truth.  We fear God more than anything on earth.  Since Obedience to God is our first priority, Christo and I don’t allow each other to fear that He will not provide in our needs. Every now and then one of us will fear; will God provide, but then we remind each other of His promises and we will step out in faith again! Sometimes  he does not answer the way we would like, but He knows what is best for us and we surrender under His Will!

Lastly God reminded me of the famous family psalm, Ps. 127

1 Unless the Lord builds the house,

 They labor in vain who build it;

 Unless the Lord guards the city,

 The watchman stays awake in vain.

2 It is vain for you to rise up early,

 To sit up late,

 To eat the bread of sorrows;

 For so He gives His beloved sleep.

3 Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,

 The fruit of the womb is a reward.

4 Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,

 So are the children of one’s youth.

5 Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;

 They shall not be ashamed,

 But shall speak with their enemies in the gate.

God is building our house.  Christo can work as hard and as many hours as he likes, but if God’s Hand of blessing isn’t on it, it is all in vain.  We can only testify how God has increased the produce of  ‘our ground, our herds, our cattle, the offspring of our flocks and my kneading bowl’.

Be obedient to the Lord. Present yourself available for His harvest and leave the size of your harvest to Him!

Remembering 2009!

It was a year filled to the brim with pleasant, unexpected surprises. It is with joy and great appreciation to my Heavenly Father and Provider, that I'm looking back on 2009!

The Lord unexpectedly led me to start this blog in early January! For 3 years I led a `Mothers’ Encouraging Evening` once a month.  

The children and I would cook a meal for the 10 plus mothers, and afterwards I would share what I’ve learned from Above Rubies and Whole Hearted Ministries.  When David was a few months old, I realized that my life was too busy.  It took me hours to prepare the teachings for these evenings and I was neglecting my little blessings.  Thus I stopped these wonderful, encouraging fellowship evenings at the end of 2007.  Christo and I both had confirmation that it was a wonderful, blessed season, but that this season was at an end, though I would miss the sharing and teaching very much.  Then during Christmas 2008, I was invited to read the blog of one of my mentors and overnight (as usual) the Lord laid it on my heart to start this blog, even giving me the name!  Thank you Lord for entrusting me with this blog, I only want to glorify your name through it.

Thank you to my encouraging husband and dear friend Hazel who checks the grammar and sentence construction of my blog. I’m an Afrikaans girl from the Free State and English is not my strong point, but thanks to your corrections, I’m learning more than ever in my life.

Through my blog I am myself so encouraged by the revelations from the Lord and I met wonderful blog-friends!  Thank you to all my new Blog-friends I met during this year!  I'm still surprised by your daily e-mails, comments and the people I meet in person who read my blog and find it encouraging.  Many of you have your own blogs and I love to read your blogs and learn, get encouraged and be inspired.

As I look back at my family-life over this year, I can only smile and thank the Lord for His faithfulness.  In February I've turned 40 

and two months later I was pregnant with baby #8. This pregnancy is such a blessing and we are now in great anticipation for his/her arrival within the next 20 days!

Our homeschooling has taken on a totally different routine.  Christo took over a lot of CJ’s teaching, they excel in their creation based science and won the Apologia’s Science Question of the Week competition twice! 

During the end of 2008 I was introduced to lapbooking and suddenly had a fun tool to involve my little ones much more. 

How I love to see their enthusiasm during this informal learning process.

Heidi-Mari and Josua also made a few lapbooks 

and started two books in the Young Explorer series. 

I believe homeschooling is learning through real life and so many of real life is happening in our home through taking care of the young ones, giving a hand in Dad’s business, working in our vegetable garden and just keeping up with daily chores. There were many days that we didn’t do the three R’s, a unit study (through lapbooking) or science. Many days they just played and since five of my seven children are under ten, playing is still very much part of our daily life!

CJ experienced miracles in his horse riding. God provided him with a horse, Silverball. 

He and Silverball won several rosettes at cross country- and show jumping competitions. 

The Lord also used Silverball and the horse-riding to build character into CJ as we are experiencing hardship by the end of this year and testing of our faith!

During the year the Lord provided for the sending out of three issues of the Above Rubies magazine and we could bring encouragement to 4000 families in South Africa and neighboring countries. Every time we sent out the magazine my children and husband worked alongside me to finish packing and posting within two weeks!

One of my biggest achievements for this year was, starting my own vegetable garden! 

Oh, how I love to sneak out in the early morning to check on my veggies.  But without Christo’s approval, making finances available and CJ’s physical hard work, it would not have been possible!

   

Thank you Lord for your Hand of blessing on my vegetable garden.  I’ve also experienced how the Lord revealed amazing truths to me through my vegetable garden.

There are still so many things I would like to share about this year, I would love to thank my little ones for the joy they bring me every day, the help of my older children, especially when I am resting on the couch or finishing a posting. I want to thank my husband for all the love and encouragement I’ve received from him and his trust in me in teaching our children. Whenever I get discouraged or worried about not doing enough in homeschooling, he is the one to give me perspective and get me focused again on the important stuff. 

Last of all I want to thank the Lord for a very big unexpected surprise I got on Tuesday. The computer I work on for researching homeschooling material, administrating Above Rubies and my blogging, is ten years old and very, very slow.  We planned on buying me a new computer, preferably a laptop, so I can use it any where in the house, but I knew of so many more important needs in our home, that I put the prospect of getting one in the near future, out of my mind.  The last few months I really got frustrated with the extra time this slow computer was taking up every time I worked on it, I asked my Heavenly Father that if possible, please to miraculously provide for a new computer, but that His will be done!

On Tuesday afternoon, when I woke up from my afternoon nap with the little ones, there was a gift box wrapped in golden gift wrap under the christmas tree.  The little ones and I, spotted it immediately and I could see the anticipation on my older children’s faces.  They handed me the box and I couldn’t help but wonder if this is what I was praying for so intensely - but that was such an impossible thought.  It was one of the biggest moments in my life, when I unwrapped the box. I had an Apple laptop on my lap!! I have no words to describe the emotions I experienced.  

Christo was able to find an amazing deal online and his colleges (whom he consulted to check it out) all asked the question: why was it so much cheaper than the normal retail price?  Well, I’m not surprised, I know why.  When God moves, you can expect miracles in every day life.  Thank you Lord for being my Heavenly Father and Provider.  Only You are worthy to take the Universes’ Throne!

May you experience the love, care, truthfulness, guidance, provision and faithfulness of our Heavenly Father in abundance during 2010.

This is my prayer for you:

14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

20 Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, 21 to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

Eph 3:14

Lots of love

Linnie