{"id":3945,"date":"2015-04-12T16:41:39","date_gmt":"2015-04-12T21:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rebeccafrech\/?p=3945"},"modified":"2015-04-12T17:52:05","modified_gmt":"2015-04-12T22:52:05","slug":"i-always-thought-wed-have-eight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rebeccafrech\/2015\/04\/i-always-thought-wed-have-eight.html","title":{"rendered":"I Always Thought We’d Have Eight"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I almost brought home a puppy yesterday. She was little and warm and cute, and a baby, and in the past few weeks I\u2019ve been struggling with the fact that our current baby is three. You see, I always thought we\u2019d have eight.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Isn\u2019t she the cutest? She\u2019s a Golden Doodle<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I never really said that magic number out loud to anyone. I buried it deep inside like a guilt pleasure of a secret, but that was always my assumption. As far back as my pregnancy with Ella, which was 11 years ago, whenever people would ask if we were going to have more children, my lips would smile and say, \u201cwe\u2019re leaving that up to God,\u201d while in my heart would beat, \u201cWe\u2019re going to have 8!!!!\u201d It was a certainty that I simply took on faith.
\nMy gut instinct was \u201cconfirmed\u201d for me when we asked a friend to be the guardian of our children (this was back when we had five), and she saucily acted with, \u201cI\u2019ll take the first eight! After that we\u2019ll have to renegotiate.\u201d It was silly, but I knew we\u2019d picked the right girl because she\u2019d known the pass code of my \u201csecret number.\u201d
\nFast forward to today, age and health issues are making the notion that our final tally might be our own \u201cMagnificent Seven\u201d rather than my own Expected Eight. Which is how I found myself sighing over a pair of big brown eyes and the warm wriggly mess they belong to. I don\u2019t know how to live without a cuddly warm baby to love on, I\u2019ve never done it in the entire 19 years of our marriage. For a brief moment, that sweet puppy filled my lap and my empty arms.<\/p>\n

\"christmas2014\"<\/a>
My own Magnificent Seven<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With one of our seven already grown and out of the house and my current baby a fiercely independent three, I\u2019m finally having to live the painful other side of being open to God\u2019s plan when it comes to being Open to Life \u2013 that sometimes there isn\u2019t<\/em> a new baby on the way. Sometimes God says \u2018No.\u2019 And being Open to Life doesn\u2019t just mean welcoming the \u2018Yes\u2019, it also means learning to embrace the \u2018No\u2019.<\/p>\n

Living in faith isn\u2019t a skill we learn once and then have mastered. It\u2019s a skill we have to continually re-learn throughout our lives. Some days it\u2019s saying yes to the big scary things, and other days it\u2019s going dandelion picking with my three-year-old and trying to remember it all, because she\u2019s growing up and there won\u2019t always be someone to go \u201cblowing on wishing flowers\u201d with me.<\/p>\n

Good golly,\u00a0 now I really<\/em> want to go back and get that puppy, if she showed up here tomorrow, I<\/em> definitely wouldn\u2019t say no. (Dear husband \u2013 hint, hint)<\/p>\n

Photo Credit: The puppy pic comes from the breeder<\/span><\/a> who would be thrilled to send her or her siblings home to one of you nice people.<\/span><\/p>\n

The other picture is my own. Don\u2019t use it without asking.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I almost brought home a puppy yesterday. She was little and warm and cute, and a baby, and in the past few weeks I\u2019ve been struggling with the fact that our current baby is three. You see, I always thought we\u2019d have eight. I never really said that magic number out loud to anyone. I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nI Always Thought We'd Have Eight<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I almost brought home a puppy yesterday. 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