Living A Whole Life

Becoming a parent is quite amazing. You're going along in life and everything seems to be going just great. You get your education, you get married, and you're enjoying life. Then you have a child and can't imagine how life would be without a kid. It's amazing how having a child fills such a wide void that you never even knew was ever there.

In Church today a woman about my age spoke today about gratitude. To make a long story short, her husband and she weren't planning on having kids when they did. She's a med student and he's also in school and also working, but they're working it out and their child is obviously an unforeseen blessing in their lives. The introductory statement of this post is from her talk.

Her comments reminded me of Lisa and my baby story. I had always been of the persuasion that young married couples should hold off on having kids for a few years and just really focus on getting to know each other first. After all, once you have kids, you really don't get much time for just you two as a couple until the kids are out of the house right?

I also, however, always thought that the decision of when to have children would lie primarily with the mom...after all it is by divine design that women are moms. I think that the "divine" part of that statement warrants some serious attention to the woman's feelings as far as timing.

When Lisa and I got married, we talked at length about kids and timing and Lisa felt the same way as me in that we should wait a while and enjoy our lives as newlyweds first.

At the beginning of our marriage, Lisa and I were in the habit of attending the Temple every week. Only a few months in, Lisa started feeling some strong promptings to have a child. Needless to say, this came as a surprise to both of us. We both started praying frequently about the matter, and the feeling didn't subside. I still had a couple years of my undergraduate education left, and Lisa still had her graduate education as well as the professional experience necessary to become certified in her field left to complete. We had no idea how the timing could possibly work out.

I think this was the first time in our marriage that we really put forth a conscious effort to act on faith.

Our son James, who is now about 16 months old, was born about 11 months later. In retrospect, if we had not had James at that exact time, we would most likely still not have a child, and not be in a position to have one for months still. We were blessed with absolutely heavenly friends in Utah who helped us in so many ways. Lisa was blessed with incredibly understanding professors who didn't necessarily make her load any easier, but made sure she knew what she needed to do and made the path clear in order to graduate.

I'm sure that I'm not really conveying how I feel here, but this whole experience has been truly miraculous. I love that kid so much. I look forward to waking up in the morning and seeing him; I look forward to coming home at night and seeing him.

Had we not had James when we did, I'm sure we would have taken more vacations. I'm sure we would have gone on more extravagant dates and probably earned more money. We might live in a better home. We might have better furniture and more toys. We most likely would be more well rested and be in better shape physically.

We probably would have had more fun (or at least fun as we knew it back then), but I'm positive we wouldn't be nearly as happy.

I'm thankful for a wife who listens to the promptings of the Spirit and has the courage and faith to act. I'm thankful for a loving Father in Heaven who knows just what we need, even if it's not what we think we want.