This is NOT what I had planned…

September 14th, 2010

By: QuatroDaddy

My life has not gone as planned.

I was looking down the train track of life, wondering what was around the next bend when, out of nowhere, someone threw a switch and we took off down an uncharted route.  Who in their wildest dreams could have come up with this course of life for us?  Where did all of this come from?  This is not what I had planned.

I married a Speech and Language Pathology graduate, not a blogger.  I thought it would be nice to have two kids and a little house, not quadruplets and room to store them.  I didn’t plan for that.

Things could not be more different than I imagined.

If you told me that my Jen, that girl I married, would be mother to 4 young boys in a few years, not a speech therapist, I would not have believed you.  I certainly would not have believed she could carry four babies for 32 weeks.  I didn’t think the girl I married was tough enough to get through something that difficult.  I was wrong.  I have developed a deep respect for Jen.  She is tough in ways that no one else gets to see, and I love her for it.  I don’t like to see her suffer, but it has demonstrated toughness I could never have imagined.  I didn’t plan to have a tough wife. (I’m supposed to be the tough one, right?)

Any number of kids take more of your time and attention than I ever realized.  Kids are on your mind whether you are with them or not.  Kids enter into every single decision we make.    The reason for that is simple, children are an amazing blessing from the Lord.  They are so amazing and we love them so much that we cannot function without considering them.  It’s the way it should be, but I didn’t plan for it.

I do way more laundry and house cleaning than my dad ever did  (sorry dad).  I did plan for that, but not THIS much more!  If I ever wash another sippy cup in my life, it will be one too many.  I actually get a strange satisfaction out of cleaning our house.  I definitely didn’t plan for that to happen.

I have four little boys who could easily become my idols.  God made them so lovely that it is tempting to worship them instead of their Creator.  They really are wonderful, but that is simply because they are the image of the one who created them.  I never planned to have that struggle.

I am a blessed man and never planned to have such an exciting life.  I never wake up in the morning and say, “what am I going to do today?”  Our home is busy and I know that I am a better man because of it.  I didn’t plan to love my wife as deeply as I do today because I never knew these depths existed.  I thank the Lord that my life has not gone as planned.  His plan for my life has been amazing so far, and I am excited to see where it leads!