Afraid To Have More Children


I didn’t grow up dreaming of marriage, motherhood or family.  I was a loner, not very pretty, wore glasses and kind of overweight.  I watched life from the sidelines most of the time. All the other girls got boyfriends in high school (or so it seemed). When I met my now husband at age 18 I figured it was a fluke, a fling, certainly not the beginning of a life together to have and to hold til death do we part (oh, and that we’d become parents to almost 11 children by our 20th wedding anniversary).

"Man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps." (Proverbs 16.9). By God’s grace we were saved at age 21, married at 23 and off to Missionary Bible College a few months later.  Under the strong advice of everyone we knew in the church and out, we planned to wait at least two years until becoming parents.  It seemed the sensible and responsible thing to do. Little would I admit to anyone I was relieved. I had never enjoyed babysitting the few times I’d done it. Kids were weird, noisy, demanding, messy and unbelievably time consuming. Deep down, the idea of having children filled me with dread. The longer we put it off, the better.

Though it seemed sensible and was advised across the board, our plans to delay starting a family (aka having children) were undergirded by fear.  Fear that having children would not only change our happy married life but that it would change for the worse.  I had never planned nor prepared for marriage and children. I had prepared for a self-fulfilling career and then later transferred that ideology to missions work.  In my mind, children would complicate things and reduce my availability & effectiveness in all areas of life.  Truth is, I was terrified of being stuck at home only being a mom.  I thought it was a waste of time, talent and treasure.  There are so many good things we could do and be for the Lord -- children would only make life more difficult, more expensive, and more boring.

It’s a beautiful, messy, raw story of God’s grace that brought me from that place of intense fear and disgust to the surrendered place of trust I live in now. Baby number eleven is nestled cozily in my womb as I share this piece of my grace journey with you. I share the whole story in my book Mom of Many: Embracing the Blessing of Children available for pre-order now.  One of the key things that helped me overcome the fear of having children was facing my incredibly low view of motherhood.  Where did all those ideas come from? Who said that motherhood was a dull, dreary, dumb thing to do with a woman’s life?  The more I got to know the God of the Bible I saw this was not how He viewed motherhood or children.  There are verses upon verses  highly exalting motherhood  and hailing children as gifts straight from Him!  My ideas had been planted and nurtured more by my culture than the Word of God.  I needed some serious Romans 12:1-2 renewal of my mind so that I could agree with what God said about myself as a woman created in His image.  From there I began to see myself, motherhood and children differently.  Changing my low view of motherhood has been a means of grace to help me wholeheartedly embrace children as a blessing rather than live in fear.

When I graduated high school everyone thought that smart (and not so ugly duckling anymore) Tara would go on to do great things.  God knew His plans for me and brought me to a deeper place of trust so I would walk without fear holding me back.  I know that if He could bring a wretch like me from that place of fear based control to this kind of surrender & trust, He can do it for anyone.  If you are willing to go there with Him, even you.

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