Blessing or Burden?

As I sit here tonight nursing my sweet little one while he sweetly snuggles in closely, I cannot help but look at him and think of how blessed I am. While I am here, my sweet husband is in the next room getting our first blessing to sleep. My husband is tired from a long day at work and we have had no time together today, but he helps me without complaint. Tyler has been tired and whiny from the moment he woke up, and yet I would never dream of thinking life would be better or easier without him.

Too often I am guilty of taking my family for granted. I do not praise God for them nearly enough, and am often not as free with my love for my family as I should be. Life is busy, kids make messes, and husbands forget. But through it all, they are still wonderful gifts from our LORD and meant to be treasured.

I was recently at a home catalog party (i.e. Mary Kay, Pampered Chef, Tupperware) at a friend's house. The demonstrator was a lady none of us had ever met before. She seemed to be a very nice lady, but the one and only thing that stuck with me about her was a short conversation she had with us about recently discovering she was pregnant with baby #3. Without going into details, she basically made it very clear that this baby was not planned and the she was quite surprised. Immediately a few others joined in with stories of how their own children had been unplanned. Some of these children were playing in the next room. Could you imagine how this would make a child feel, to hear Mommy telling her friends that you were an "accident"? My heart broke. Somewhat for the children and some for the women who so desperately want children and cannot have them or those who may be trying and waiting for their next blessing that they would so willingly rejoice over. I've been there!

I will probably never see that lady again. But I will probably always have a bad image of the company she represented just because of that. I'm sure she did not think anything of the conversation, nor did the other ladies who joined in. It was just "small talk". But you know what, complaining about our husbands or our children should never be a source of small talk. We should love them and praise God for them, even in the tough times. We, as Christians, are representatives of our Saviour. Will our murmurings be all the world sees of Him in us??

Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD: and the fruit of the womb is his reward Psalm 127:3

Nevertheless let every one of you in particular so love his wife even as himself; and the wife see that she reverence her husband. Ephesians 5:33

Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives. While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear. I Peter 3:1-2

But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation. I Peter 1:15

(Steps off soapbox)