Let me talk about the end of 2018. Kyle and Natalie, our music pastor and his wife, came to us and told us that they were pregnant with their third child. I don’t remember the exact date, but it was mid-2018. In my heart of hearts, I can assure you (my reader) that I was done having children. All through college and perhaps even before that, I had always said that I wanted two little girls; no more, no less. And at that moment, I had my two girls and beyond that, Ellie was already seven years old. Having another child wouldn’t make sense at all.

However, when our friend’s words rang in my mind, a spark began to burn inside of me. I couldn’t shake the idea of another child from my mind. It nearly consumed me. God was pulling at me, causing me to question my conviction. At first, I didn’t talk to Alicia about this. How could I? If I told her about it, she would get excited and if these feelings turned out to be nothing, just a passing fancy, then I would have hurt her a great deal. Inside myself though, I knew she wanted more children. She had always said four, but we had compromised on two. She always said no way to three because she didn’t want the third to be left out. Or for there to be a middle child.

I went and spoke with Kyle about my feelings and thoughts. His immediate response was, “You need to have another kid!” Now I know he must have been a little biased since he and his wife had made a very similar decision. I spoke to him about my hesitations. About all the reasons why it was a crazy idea, why we shouldn’t do it. And then I said that despite all that, I was still convicted about it. I didn’t know why. He told me that he had similar feelings before they had made their decisions and that he had come to have peace about it through prayer. He told me I needed to be in prayer and that I should seek Christ’s will. While I appreciated his enthusiasm and advice, I was still unsure.

I went home and spoke to Alicia about it. I came out of our closet just before bed and said, “What would you think about us having another kid?” She stopped. “Are you being serious?” she asked. “Now, you can’t just bring this up with me, if you are serious you need to let me know. Because I had a peace about us not having any more kids, even though it’s something I have really wanted. You can’t just throw this out there you know.”

I paused in the doorway, considering why I had even mentioned it without having come to a solid conclusion just yet. “I haven’t come to a consensus yet on how I feel, or what God is telling me about it. I don’t have peace, but I felt like I needed to tell you what was on my heart. What do you think about that?” I can’t be sure, but I remember her beginning to cry. “I have a peace about it, I say let’s do it!” I regaled her with all my logical reasons as to why I thought it was a bad idea, and still she held firm. When I spoke to my mom and dad about it later, they held to my beliefs about the bad idea of having another kid. It would be too hard, too expensive, and just overall not a good idea. I didn’t have peace about it. I wasn’t sure.

During this time, I was working up in the sound booth for our local church. I can’t tell you what the sermon was about. I can’t tell you what really was even going on in my own mind at that moment. However, while working the sound for our Facebook live feed, Pastor began to speak and my heart suddenly lurched. All I can recall is that for a moment in time, Pastor was no longer speaking to the congregation, God was speaking through him to me.

All my fear was gone. All my reservations were gone. The logical reasoning, I had built up in my mind seemed like foolishness. God had a plan. I didn’t know what it was, but He had one. I needed to trust in His ability to see us through the challenges. Which is interesting. Nikolai was born on August 31, 2019. It was a mostly uneventful birth, but just a day after he was born, he had to be taken to the NICU because he had an infection in his blood. He was there for about a week until he was strong enough to come home with us. It wouldn’t be the last time one of my kids had an extended stay in a hospital.

Looking back at this time now, after Niko was born, Alicia was able to take off enough time from work so that she could get all the way from the beginning of school in August to Christmas break staying at home with him, fantastic. But God took us a step further. One month after Christmas break, the COVID-19 Pandemic of 2020 hit and we worked from home for the most part until that Summer, giving Alicia just about a full year of staying at home with Niko.

Even when we did have to go back to work (sorta) in the next school year of 2020 in September of that year, Niko was able to only go to daycare part-time, Mom and Dad kept him two days a week, saving us money and allowing him to spend a lot of time with family. God has a way of working these things out. In ways, we will never understand and will often never see until a long time later.

Now, I continue to look at my son (he’s two and a half now) and Kyle’s little girl and I think about these kids. Who they are becoming and who they are right now. The world is a better place with them in it. A friend of mine recently went through a similar situation as I did and I got to hold his little girl (just a couple months old now) in my arms. We were at dinner with them the other night and I looked over at my son and then down at this little girl in my arms. What a blessing children are. I feel like the meaning of life and love and laughter are brought into clarity through these kids. They will grow up in our church, they will be loved by everyone in it, and they will be loved by us. There will be difficulty, pain, heartache, and tears, and it will all be worth it. All the difficulty that comes with having kids and raising kids will be worth it.

D. Michl Lowe