If you come here fairly often, you know that our youngest son and his wife recently welcomed their first baby, a sweet little girl. So now all five of our sons, incredibly, are dads.
For the past few years, my prayer has been to live long enough to meet son #5’s first child. He's five years younger than his next oldest brother, and he got married about five years behind the last of the rest of them. I felt like my husband and I had been very blessed to see our four oldest boys become dads (more than once each!); so I would pray, "Please God, let me live to see my baby become a dad, too!"
Now that I've met his darling firstborn child, my prayer has changed to, "Thanks so much! I am eternally grateful! Now if you don't mind, I'd like to meet a few more of his children, too, if you're going to send more. I don't mean to be greedy, but you know: ‘Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you.’ (Matthew 7:7) Just asking, seeking, and knocking here…but Thy will be done, of course!”
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It has been a unique blessing to watch our boys become fathers, let me tell you. I can think of few things that have been more rewarding. All five of them have embraced fatherhood with zeal, falling into the role as naturally as if they'd been born for it (and since they don't have religious vocations, I absolutely believe they were born for it).
It's about the most beautiful sight these eyes have ever seen, watching these beloved boys with their children. And to illustrate that point, I'm just going to end this post with a little photo dump (using some snapshots--not necessarily the most recent ones-- culled from the hundreds, maybe thousands, I have to choose from!).
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| Son #1 (father of 6 on earth, 4 in Heaven), with his youngest. |
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| Son #2 (father of 4 on earth, one in Heaven, and one on the way), with his third-born. |
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| Our middle son (father of 5), with his firstborn. |
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| Son #4 (father of 4), with his youngest. |
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| Our baby, with his first baby. |
I LOVE my family. Love them to pieces. These boys. Their wives. And the 20-going-on-21 grandchildren they've given us to treasure, as well as the five tiny precious souls who wait to meet us in Heaven (pray for us, sweet babies! We need your help!).
Thank you, God, for EVERYTHING! Especially for these five dads.
God is so good! Look at them all rocking their vocations so well!
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DeleteI am so happy for you! They all have such big families already too (I think the youngest one will catch up quickly if he's anything like his brothers!) Did you ever think any of your boys might have had a religious vocation? I totally believe that God has to call them to their vocation and they won't be truly happy unless that happens...but then it also feels like if a family like mine with six boys doesn't have one religious vocation, am I doing something wrong? I would love to see all of my sons become dads, just for the record :)
ReplyDeleteWe are so thrilled that they are open to having large families. I guess that makes them counter-cultural--and the culture being what it is these days, nothing could make me happier!
DeleteThat's such an interesting question! There were at least two of our boys (that we know of) who briefly, when they were young, questioned whether they might someday be called to the priesthood. But ultimately, they were all drawn to marriage and fatherhood. My husband is one of eight, and there are 32 Pearl first cousins in our boys' generation. So far we haven't had any religious vocations among them. I think those kids all grew up loving family life so much that they wanted that for themselves. I remember our youngest commenting that there was always a new baby in the Pearl clan. And it was true! When the last of my husband's siblings had cousin #32, within about a year our oldest son started off the next generation of cousins with his twins. There are 43 cousins--and counting--in this new generation now (20 of them from our family!), and that's just from the oldest four in my husband's family. I can't imagine how many there will be when the younger four start having grandkids.
Sorry for the novel! Anyway, I would have been so proud if a son had been called to the priesthood. But I'm so proud of the fathers they are. The world needs good fathers, that's for sure. 💜
Having read your blog since the beginning, for some reason I started to cry whilst looking at these photos. You and your husband are indeed blessed.
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Annie, this comment touches me more than you'll ever know! If you've read from the beginning (2011!), you know how very much our life and our boys have changed and how much our family has grown. What an amazing ride it has been. And now I'm starting to cry, knowing that you "know" my beloved sons!! God bless you for being here and thank you for your kind words. 💜
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DeleteSuch sweet dads! They had great examples of parent's love growing up that I am not surprised they do so well.
ReplyDeleteThe angle of that last picture of Jack looks so much like a young Tim !