A Prophecy? Nah.

Twice in the past two days, two of my instructors in Cornerstone School of Ministry have referred to my 13 kids. I don't know what's up with that. We only have 12 kids. There's part of me that thinks, `Oh, cut 'em some slack. I mean 12 or 13, what's the difference, right?' Really, what's one more at this point? People with 1 or 2 kids, or even 3 kids, frequently say to us something along the lines of, "I don't know how you do it." To answer that question, first off I say we're living proof there's a God in heaven. That's plainly obvious to anyone who would try to raise, feed, diaper (see yesterday's informative post for more diapering insight), put in braces, not leave any at rest areas on 3,000-mile cross country trips and generally survive having 12 kids. Or 13 if I've lost track. (It actually kind of got me wondering if Julie had slipped one in on me. As a general rule of thumb I try to keep pretty good track of these things. Or at least thought I did. Have I been that busy with school?)

The other thing I tell people, after God is good and always provides for us, is that when you have 1 kid and go to 2, you've just doubled your kid population. When you use the words "double" and "population" in such close proximity, that qualifies as an explosion. In every sense of the word as parents can attest. Then when you have 2 kids you generally think, `Sheesh, one kid was a piece of cake.' If the Lord blesses you with 3 kids, you think how easy it was with 2 kids, but again you've increased your house o' kids by50 percent. That's still a big number, percentage wise. Now, I'm not saying when you get to 12 you think, `Wow, 11 kids was such a breeze.' Even though, of course, as a percentage you've only jumped 9 percent, which is obviously a much smaller number than 50 percent. (I'm not sure what I proved by throwing around all these numbers. If felt good because it made me feel like I really do have a left side of my brain. Anways, maybe a math whiz can tell me what all the numbers mean.)

Getting back to these instructors telling me I have 13 kids...someone said it's prophecy. Now that I take issue with. Prophecy should generally be reserved for divinely inspired predictions. Like what you find in Isaiah 53 (For example, "And by His stripes we are healed." That's a clear reference to Christ's crucifixion and how he saved us from our sins.) and a multitude of other examples (Such as Psalm 22:1, "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" Which are words uttered by Christ on the cross). Predicting Julie will bear another child is hardly prophecy. Talk about an easy kill. Isn't that more of a `fact'? Doesn't she have a fairly decent track record of having a fruitful womb? I mean for 12 out of the past 19 years she's produced a kid. No, prophecy would be something like a prediction that Julie won't have more kids because the Lord has something else for her. And you know what? That would be hard for me. I love our babies. All 12 of them. Or 13, whatever the count is these days.