Careful what you pray for...

Wherefore come out from among them, & be ye separate, saith the Lord, & touch not the unclean thing; & I will receive you & will be to you a father, & ye shall be to me sons & daughters, saith the Lord God almighty. 2Cor:6:17 & 18.


Once upon a time, which is how the best stories always start isn't it? there was a mummy who had 3 very beautiful sons. She loved her sons very, very much but in her heart of hearts she hankered after *one thing more...* a daughter of her very own to love & cherish...


When my kiddos were very little their favourite stories where the ones I told of how they were desired & cherished before they were born & of the day they were born. The kids never tired of hearing the old, old tale of the day they were born: who was there; what was said; what was done ~ a plethora of trivial details about the time before they were.


Now as a woman without sisters my experience of girls was somewhat limited. The girls at school had sisters. They puzzled me. I wasn't interested in clothes or make~up ~ or boys. Phuleeese. I had brothers. Who would want one of those? I enjoyed my girl cousins but they were sensible & interesting people with lots of different interests.


So when Dearest informed me that there hadn't been many girls born in his family for generations [& the families ran to 4 or more sons...Good grief! The mind quails!] I wasn't unduly alarmed. I was comfortable being the mother of sons. Loud, grotty, physical, I understood. Not that way myself but that was boys for you. I was delighted with Jossie. The twins were just 2 gorgeous for words.


Boys in the house make it seem very...full. They take up so much space. They make so much noise. They *do* all the time. And I began to think it was time for a nice quiet girl. Something a little different. I wanted to hang dainty dresses on my clothes line as a change from the grubby Ts & board shorts. Someone who might like the *girly* books on the shelves upstairs. Someone more like me. I figured my chances were pretty slim.


I fell pregnant again & pretty soon the familiar knock 'em down, put 'em to bed morning sickness raised it's ugly head ~ good indication I was carrying a boy. I wasn't too put out but when I lost the baby I decided it was time for drastic proactive action. I took the problem to God.


I should have been more clear. What I had in mind was more like Ditz ~ minus some of her odder quirks ~ but I was about to take a girl any way God chose to send her. For starters, as I pointed out to God, I didn't really want a single sex household where even the cat was male. Two sex households are generally better balanced, giving the children of each gender a better insight & understanding of the other ~ & thus, hopefully, a better preparation for marriage themselves. Then I was starting to feel quite peculiar in my own home. Boys are just different. They really are. They think differently. They act differently. They respond differently. They are aliens in human skins. At some point in this very lopsided conversation I had a *lunatic moment* & told God any girl I got was His. I mean really! All my kids were His. They start that way; they end that way. I only get to borrow them for a season. Put it down to hormones ~ but God took me at my word.


The next pregnancy was different. All the time everyone cheerfully told me another boy was on it's way I *knew* in my innermost being that this one was a girl. No, no visitations from angels or instructions like, "And her name shall be..." Nothing like that. Nope. Much simpler ~ & far less scary. The boys I carried *all out in front* like a galleon under full sail . I was quite a sight. The girls I carried *around my waist* like a spare tire. Boys give me *morning sickness* morning, noon & night; constant, debilitating, exhausting morning sickness. The girls I get a twinge of nausea every now & again but never to the point of being actually physically sick. If I'd known that I'd have requested girls earlier!


Jossie got the only name Dearest & I could actually agree on. The twins got names we both agreed we could live with. The girl's name we had all picked out & waiting for the girl to come along. It is a family name; the name of my mother & Dearest's grandmother. It shows up in family records as far back as we have them. It means Consecrated to God, an irony I was unaware of at the time.


For a year or two I had little dresses waving in the breeze alongside the boy~shirts & shorts & I can assure you as the only girl in a houseful of boys Liddy was quite the Queen Bee & not in the least backward in assuring any laggards that she was She Who Was to Be Obeyed ~ pronto! My boys, being of a generally easy going nature, promptly obliged. Liddy, being the only girl & the youngest to boot, was in a fair way to being spoilt absolutely rotten. The antidote to this sad state of affairs [a little sister to take some of the wind out of her sails] not only did not eventuate but did not in the least look like eventuating any time soon. I took the problem back to God. We got Ditz. Ditz is fully capable of taking the wind out of any number of sisters' sails.


I tell these stories because my children are treasured beyond all measure. It is my way of assuring them they were wanted, thought of, prayed for & prayed over, loved & cherished before they were so much as 2 cells sub~dividing in the hidden places of my body. What I hadn't quite realised is how much these stories have meant to my children. Like Mary, they have pondered these things in their hearts. Fragile as it is, may the story of their birth be a shelter of love amidst all the storms of life.