Ponderings

I am meeting tomorrow with our children's pastor and another woman from the church to plan the mother daughter sleep over. I am very excited. I have tons of ideas and have been planning this in my brain since November. No, I don't have daughters. This is my one night a year to spend with girls only! I love it. I crash the party every year. Every year, I walk out having throuroughly enjoyed myself and THOUROUGHLY grateful that God saw fit to give me boys not girls!!!! This year, I'm second in charge. (Children's pastor is always IN charge). I think it will be good. It's always been one of the mom's of the girls who's been in charge before. This time, the other woman and I both have boys that will be with their dad's at the father son camp out. Neither of us will have kids to keep track of or demanding our attention. Our children's pastor is pregnant and due in July ... and this will be the last big blow out before her maternity leave. So, J and I can just take charge, let our children's pastor enjoy being with 'her kids' and let the mom's be mom. We can run things without having to keep track of our own kids. It should work out wonderful. But, it's got me thinking ... about desires, dreams and wishes. When I was a kid and young adult ... and pregnant ... I wanted girls. I didn't want boys for anything. I never wanted a son. I wanted daughters! I was so sure I wanted girls. I wanted to brush their hair and put in pretty ribbons. I wanted to dress them in pretty dresses and play tea party ... I was looking forward to Barbie dolls and batons, cheerleading and gymnastics ... and then ... I got boys. What's the deal God ... I wanted girls?!! Where's the ribbons and barbies? I get overalls and trucks? Like most moms, I was immediately taken by the charm and cherubic cheeks of my darling sons. I was lost in the eyes and the smiles ... very soon, too soon, just 2 weeks into my oldest sons life, 1 day into my youngest sons life ... problems showed up. We knew, they were not healthy, they would not be healthy. Ribbons and barbies didn't matter a lick anymore. Life mattered. The youngest child would be 8 years old before I would ever again think about the fact that I had wanted girls not boys. I was watching my then 8 year old son play and he landed right into a mud puddle ... along with a little girl that had been chasing him. She burst into tears, he into laughter. I was just dying laughing and so taken by his reaction ... later that night I realized ...wait! I'd wanted girls! What happened? God, I wanted girls, why didn't I get my girl? (I miscarried a girl at 20 weeks pregnancy 14 months before my oldest son was born) Why do I have to wait till heaven to meet my daughter and play with ribbons in the hair? For a week or two I pouted. My heart broke as I dreamed about the girl I'd wanted so badly. The next Sunday at church, a girl was not wanting to have the bow put back in her hair and was whinning. I took my son onto his class, stepping around another family with a girl who was whinning because she'd gotten water on her pretty dress ... stopping at the Sunday school, another girl in my sons class was whinning ... about nothing, she was HAPPY and was whinning!!!! I was suddenly very aware .. my sons ...don't, nor have they ever whined. I left church that day, laughing with my sons, as I usually do, and realizing ... I'd have made a terrible mother to girls. I only wanted daughters for the ribbons and the tea parties! I love digging for worms with my sons and have been known to torture them with creepy crawlies ... I love the rough and tumble world of boys ... if I had had girls, I'd have wound up with tomboys for sure ... God surely knew what he was doing when he gave me what I truely desired in a family. I may have THOUGHT I wanted girls. But he knew I really wanted boys. Isn't it wonderful that God knows what we want more than we do?????