Here We Go Again

Aaron Smith:
Hey we’re Aaron and Jennifer Smith with Marriage After God.

Jennifer Smith:
Helping you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.

Aaron Smith:
And today we’re going to share our perspectives of, going into this, again.

Aaron Smith:
Welcome to the Marriage After God podcast, where we believe that marriage was meant for more than just happily ever after.

Jennifer Smith:
I’m Jennifer, also known as UnveiledWife.

Aaron Smith:
And I’m Aaron, also known as HusbandRevolution.

Jennifer Smith:
We have been married for over a decade.

Aaron Smith:
And so far we have four young children.

Jennifer Smith:
We have been doing marriage ministry online for over seven years through blogging and social media.

Aaron Smith:
With the desire to inspire couples to keep God at the center of their marriage, encouraging them to walk in faith every day.

Jennifer Smith:
We believe that Christian marriage should be an extraordinary one, full of life-

Aaron Smith:
Love.

Jennifer Smith:
And power.

Aaron Smith:
That can only be found by chasing after God-

Jennifer Smith:
Together.

Aaron Smith:
Thank you for joining us on this journey, as we chase boldly after God’s will for our life together.

Jennifer Smith:
This is Marriage After God.

Aaron Smith:
Hey thanks for joining us on a new episode of Marriage After God podcast, man it’s already September, we’re in the last quarter, it’s crazy how fast this year’s going by, but as my wife would say, we have plenty of time left in the year. But before we get into what this episode is about, I want to invite you take part in our 31 day marriage prayer challenge. It’s completely free, and we made this challenge to encourage you in your marriage to be praying for your spouse every single day, we pray that over the next 31 days you build not only a habit, but a ministry of praying for your spouse.

Aaron Smith:
And all you’ve got to do is go to marriageprayerchallenge.com, that’s marriageprayerchallenge.com and sign up for free, it’s completely free. Just choose your prayer challenge, either for the husband or for the wife, and hopefully you do it together as a couple, and start praying every day for your spouse. What we’re going to do is we’re going to send you an email every day, with a prompt and a reminder to not only pray for your spouse, but what things you could be praying for, for them.

Aaron Smith:
And so it’s pretty awesome, it’s completely free. So go to marriageprayerchallenge.com today, and sign up and join the challenge.

Jennifer Smith:
Okay so for today’s episode we just thought the title would be funny, Here We Go Again, like what-

Aaron Smith:
Here what go again?

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. We thought we’d leave people guessing, you know is this a good thing, or?

Aaron Smith:
Yeah. Because it almost sounds like an argument, or like we’re going around that block again with all those issues or whatever.

Jennifer Smith:
I’m actually curious what did come to people’s mind. [crosstalk 00:02:32].

Aaron Smith:
Yeah if you want to send us a message on Instagram at marriagaftergod.com and let us know what you think the episode was about before you listen to it, that’d be really awesome, and interesting to find out what people thought.

Jennifer Smith:
Fun.

Jennifer Smith:
Okay, so the truth is, and I’m just going to jump right in, right now.

Aaron Smith:
Wait.

Jennifer Smith:
What?

Aaron Smith:
I just wanted to give it a little bit of affect. Okay.

Jennifer Smith:
We have some really exciting news for you guys. Well, we think it’s exciting. I’m holding in my hand a very cute black and white picture of a little jellybean growing inside of me.

Aaron Smith:
We’re pregnant!

Jennifer Smith:
Again.

Aaron Smith:
Again. Here we go again, that’s what that’s about. It sounds kind of negative now that I think about it.

Jennifer Smith:
No. We’re pregnant again, number five.

Aaron Smith:
We are doing this again.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah.

Aaron Smith:
This is the fifth go-around for us, which is kind of crazy, but kind of awesome. And so we wanted to do a little announcement episode, announce to you all, because we love you all and we know that you guys follow our family, and you love knowing about our children and what’s going on. And so we thought, let’s tell them all in a podcast episode, but not just tell you that we’re pregnant. We thought it’d be awesome to answer some of your questions.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah.

Aaron Smith:
And so we’re going to do that.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. We’re going to talk about some of the realities of what’s been going on in our hearts and minds, and family time over the last few weeks and just share what the Lord’s been doing in our hearts about our family growing. I know that we’ve done some episodes in the past on parenting, I remember specifically when I was pregnant last time, we did Fears of a Growing Family, so if you guys want to check that out, that’s available for you.

Jennifer Smith:
But today’s not going to be focused on fears, today’s just going to be on the realities of a growing family and what’s been going on with us.

Aaron Smith:
Yeah. We’ve done other episodes in the past also just on family Bible time, and family adventure, and lots of different kinds of family things.

Jennifer Smith:
Family oriented things. Okay, so but before we jump in, I just want to let you guys know that we have some listeners that can’t get pregnant and are trying, or just have different circumstances when it comes to getting pregnant or maybe we have couples who are praying about adoption or fostering, and so we just wanted to let you guys know that our hearts are with you, and even though our circumstances may be different, we hope that this podcast episode about sharing our experience would still encourage you and still direct your hearts to the Lord.

Aaron Smith:
Yeah. And for those that are currently trying to have children, or have been trying to have children, we know quite a few people that have been through that, and how hard it could be. Our encouragement is to continue leaning on the Lord to rely on His strength, to believe that He is got good plans for you and your family and to not grow weary. And to put your hope and faith in God. So we’re with you.

Jennifer Smith:
Yep.

Jennifer Smith:
Okay, so I think that we should probably start when I told you that I was pregnant.

Aaron Smith:
Yeah, you probably should start maybe three weeks before that, though.

Jennifer Smith:
Okay, so I guess the reason why I even took a test. Okay, so we went on this double date night with a couple, another couple, friends of ours.

Aaron Smith:
A couple of friends of ours.

Jennifer Smith:
I know.

Aaron Smith:
Who are a couple.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah.

Aaron Smith:
And married.

Jennifer Smith:
And we got to the restaurant, and we even got as far as ordering our food, and then I don’t know what happened, but-

Aaron Smith:
You started going downhill real quick.

Jennifer Smith:
Really fast. I had my head on my arm, resting on the table, and I think you-

Aaron Smith:
I was trying to entertain our friends, thinking that you were sleeping or something.

Jennifer Smith:
You were like, what’s up with Jen?

Aaron Smith:
I was like, don’t mind her, she’s fine.

Jennifer Smith:
And I remember looking up at you and I’m like, Aaron I think you should stay and hang out, but I feel like I’m dying and I need to go home right now.

Aaron Smith:
I was really surprised, because it’s never happened before. You having to leave because you’re that ill.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. I don’t know what was going on, but I felt violently ill and I thought I was just sick and that I was going to vomit everywhere and so I had to get out of that restaurant as quickly as possible. And I remember my friend, my girlfriend, she leaned over the table with so much excitement and she was like, Jen are you pregnant? And I was like, no, no I’m not pregnant.

Aaron Smith:
Yeah, you had no idea, right? At the moment.

Jennifer Smith:
No. And so that was the first things, but I still didn’t think about it right away, but over the course of the next couple weeks you and I were just kind of off. I was emotional and we weren’t-

Aaron Smith:
We were fighting about these nothing, what are they called? Nothing fights?

Jennifer Smith:
I don’t know. It wasn’t even a fight it was just-

Aaron Smith:
Arguing back and forth, and not connecting, not understanding each other and I’m like, why are you mad about this, or what’s happening? Or you thinking that I … It was just-

Jennifer Smith:
A little bit crazy.

Aaron Smith:
Yeah, a little bit crazy.

Jennifer Smith:
I feel like when I look back at it, it was just a thing of misunderstanding. Like I would misunderstand you, you would misunderstand me, and then we’d be in a funk.

Aaron Smith:
What you were realizing, is you were totally emotionally hormonally because of the pregnancy, which we didn’t know you were pregnant.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. My body was just going through a loop.

Aaron Smith: But any time in that past that we’ve had these seasons where it feels chaotic and emotional, and usually it’s something like you’re pregnant. So that’s what made you think to go get a test.

Jennifer Smith: Yep. So I did, and I didn’t tell you that I was going to do that, but I did and-

Aaron Smith: Well I’ll say this, I didn’t know you had a test, because you had me go get one, we do it periodically because it’s our way of checking but I didn’t know you were going to take one. I also was just assuming it was going to be negative, I was like okay, yeah, this is what we do, we’ve done it for a long time. So, it was out of mind out of sight type thing.

Jennifer Smith:
So, you just weren’t thinking about it.

Aaron Smith:
I wasn’t even thinking about, nope.

Jennifer Smith:
Okay, so I was coming down the hall, I knew you were in the kitchen and I was excited, and I wanted to tell you right away, and as I was coming down the hall you-

Aaron Smith:
We were passing each other at the end of the hall.

Jennifer Smith:
… Were already walking towards me, but you were in a hurry, so what was going on?

Aaron Smith:
Well I walked by and I was just like, my stomach was all jacked up, I maybe ate something or I don’t know, I was like my stomach hurts so bad, oh we did some sort of workout two days in a row, and that’s what it was my abs were killing. My whole chest and body, and so I was walking by complaining, I was like, ah my stomach hurts so bad.

Jennifer Smith:
And I think I just assumed you were headed towards the bathroom because you were so in a hurry. And so I used the opportunity to quickly say, “Well it probably doesn’t hurt like mine does.”

Aaron Smith:
And I stopped and I was like, what? It didn’t make any sense to me, until you said…

Jennifer Smith:
We’re expecting again.

Aaron Smith:
And then I with a perfect and excited and joyful attitude responded with, are you serious?

Jennifer Smith:
I wish you guys could see his face right now because it’s really like-

Aaron Smith:
I was really, really taken aback.

Jennifer Smith:
His eyebrows are all twisted up.

Aaron Smith:
I was totally expecting that at whatever point you did take the test, it was just going to be a, no we’re not pregnant yet, because that’s happened in the past and so when you said we were, it was probably the least exuberant response I’ve given, in the past I cried, and we’re going to be a-

Jennifer Smith:
You’re so excited.

Aaron Smith:
And then this one’s like, are you serious? I had to quickly adjust because I didn’t know how you were going to take it. I was like, I mean I was just surprised, but that’s cool. Cool, five, rad.

Jennifer Smith:
I think because that number felt big to me, that I wasn’t shocked by your response at all. I just thought it was funny.

Aaron Smith:
Because you probably felt the same way.

Jennifer Smith:
So we got over that little, whatever that was in the hallway really quick, and the reality started to set in.

Aaron Smith:
Until it set in that we’re actually going to have five children.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. Wow. It’s still when I say it, I’m like, that’s crazy. So we’re due in March.

Aaron Smith:
How many weeks along are you?

Jennifer Smith:
About 12 and some days.

Aaron Smith:
So you’re almost out of your-

Jennifer Smith:
I’m almost out of my first trimester.

Aaron Smith:
Yeah. Crazy, but awesome. So, definitely nervous, but I am excited, because of course this is what the Lord’s doing in our life, we love children. That doesn’t negate the fact of any of the nervousness I have, or questions, and I know we said we’re not going to talk about fears, but there are fears.

Jennifer Smith:
Sure.

Aaron Smith:
And there’s unsure things, and how’s it going to work? But that’s why we want to answer some of these questions that our listeners might be having because some people are being like, what’s it like to have five kids? I don’t know.

Jennifer Smith:
We don’t know yet.

Aaron Smith:
We kind of know what it’s like to have four.

Jennifer Smith:
We’re just getting used to that one.

Aaron Smith:
Yeah, we’re just getting used to that one, barely.

Jennifer Smith:
Truett just turned one.

Aaron Smith:
Yeah. So why don’t we just get into some questions, and then at the end of this we have a really cool bit of scripture I’m going to read.

Jennifer Smith:
I’m going to read some too.

Aaron Smith:
Oh. Jennifer’s going to read some too.

Jennifer Smith:
Maybe I’ll read mine before you read yours.

Aaron Smith:
Oh, okay. So why don’t you, I don’t know where you want to go from here, but let’s do it.

Jennifer Smith:
Okay. Do you have any fears about having another baby?

Aaron Smith:
Oh. So we’re just going to go right into-

Jennifer Smith:
Well because you brought up fears, so I’m like I’ll just shoot with that question. We’ll get it out of the way.

Aaron Smith:
Yes. I already don’t sleep a lot. What is it like every morning all of our kids are in our bed?

Jennifer Smith:
Not every morning, come on.

Aaron Smith:
I have a little sliver of … Do they make bigger than a kind size bed? I know we have a Cal king, but that’s just a little longer. But do they have a double king? Wait there is a company that makes these huge beds.

Jennifer Smith:
I know, but I saw a picture on Facebook the other day of this couple that extended their bed, so it was basically two queens butted up against each other, but they built the frame around it so that their eight dogs could sleep with the, it was really cute.

Aaron Smith:
We have children, not dogs.

Jennifer Smith:
Okay, but just so everyone knows-

Aaron Smith:
But they do sleep on the bed with us sometimes.

Jennifer Smith:
It’s not every night though.

Aaron Smith:
It’s most.

Jennifer Smith:
They sneak in when they have a bad dream, or they just want to be close to us.

Aaron Smith:
Or they woke up at 6:30 and they wanted to get in bed with us.

Jennifer Smith:
6:30, people are saying that’s not early. That’s actually probably decent.

Aaron Smith:
It doesn’t bother, I’m just saying, I already get very little sleep, and just, okay, I’m used to it. We’re not going to sleep until the kids are out of the house, I get it. Okay.

Aaron Smith:
Other fears, you know I don’t want to have these fears, but I do. Just knowing the way the world is, and people think this, how can I bring children into this world? Well, God’s good and God has me, and he has this whole world. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have fears. I think I’d be weird if I didn’t think about the things that are going on in the world, but I do. But I feel like, if you think about the world that our parents grew up in, and they probably thought very similarly, like wow look at the world we’re growing up in. I mean they saw different kinds of wars, and they saw lots of crazy things, and how strong we are from in that world.

Aaron Smith:
I just think that how incredibly strong our children are going to be, especially if we teach them to know the Lord in this world that we live in. So, even though it might be unsure to us, because we’re seeing it unfold, they know nothing else. And so even though I have some anxiousness about this world that they’re going to grow up in, I feel like God is mighty and these kids are going to be powerful change makers, and salt and light in this world.

Jennifer Smith:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Aaron Smith:
Because this is the world they know. I don’t know, those are just some thoughts I have.

Jennifer Smith:
Cool, well when I think about fears of having another baby I think…

Aaron Smith:
Something new we’re going to be trying to do on our episodes is talking about other podcasts, other resources that we love, that we want to support, so that you can get connected, so that you can find out about these resources as well. This week we want to talk about courageousparenting.com, these are some really good friends of ours, Issac and Angie Tolpin, we actually go to church with them, they’re part of our home church and they have a parenting mentor program that you can take. And it’s at courageousparenting.com and all you’ve got to do is hit the enroll now button in the top right, and they have live conversations they do. It’s a six week program, they do six videos, six parenting packets, three live webcasts, there’s a private community. And their whole point, and their whole heart behind this is to walk parents through Biblical Christian parenting.

Aaron Smith:
So, we wanted to encourage you to check that out, it’s courageousparenting.com. Click the enroll now button.

Jennifer Smith:
Things like actually giving birth to the baby-

Aaron Smith:
That’s the easy part. Everyone listening to me right now that’s a mom is like, what?

Jennifer Smith:
He knows he’s joking.

Aaron Smith:
I’ve been to every single one, ladies I know exactly how hard they are, from the husband’s perspective.

Jennifer Smith:
Thank you for clarifying. And so just a little background there, I have actually really enjoyed, you know the pregnancy process and giving birth and just it’s a highlight. I mean it’s a miracle of life and I’m grateful to be a part of it, and I have been fortunate to have … Go into it with the desire to give birth naturally, and-

Aaron Smith:
And praise God you’ve done it naturally-

Jennifer Smith:
Done it naturally-

Aaron Smith:
Four times.

Jennifer Smith:
Four times. And so I think that when I think about labor and delivering, I still desire that, to have the baby naturally and nothing go wrong. And so just again those fears of the unknown, of surrendering it to God and saying, “No matter what happens, I’m yours and this child is yours.” But yet I still have these fears of the unknown, of what if, you know what if this happens or that happens.

Aaron Smith:
So I’m sure some people are wondering have you had any home births, or all at the hospital?

Jennifer Smith:
They’ve all been in the hospital.

Aaron Smith:
But we have thought about-

Jennifer Smith:
We have thought about doing-

Aaron Smith:
Home birth.

Jennifer Smith:
… A home birth, but-

Aaron Smith:
Almost pulled the trigger this last time, but it was like no, let’s just do the hospital.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah.

Aaron Smith:
There’s some awesome benefits to that.

Jennifer Smith:
Totally.

Aaron Smith:
To the hospital.

Jennifer Smith:
I always tell people the food at our hospital is great.

Aaron Smith:
And the ice chips.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah.

Aaron Smith:
So, here’s the next question, are we going to find out the gender? And the reason I ask that is because twice now we haven’t found out the gender, and twice now we have.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. I don’t know if everyone listening knows this, but I really like to find out ahead of time-

Aaron Smith:
I do not.

Jennifer Smith:
Aaron likes to be surprised and so this is how we compromise.

Aaron Smith:
Every other one.

Jennifer Smith:
So the first one we got to find out, it was Eliot.

Aaron Smith:
Then Olive was our sweet surprise, which was really cool actually because she was a girl so it was like aah.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. That was really cool.

Aaron Smith:
It’s so crazy.

Jennifer Smith:
And then we found out with Wyatt and Drewitt was a surprise, so now we’re going to find out.

Aaron Smith:
And there’s something really cool about it being a surprise though, it’s a huge motivation during the labor process.

Jennifer Smith:
That’s true, for both of us.

Aaron Smith:
For both of us.

Jennifer Smith:
Really for me, I can’t wait to meet that baby when I’m-

Aaron Smith:
But the benefits of finding out early, is we get to know who they are, sooner.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah.

Aaron Smith:
And names have always been a difficult part of it, we’re not going to talk about names today, but knowing early gives us more time to think of names.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah, that’s true. Speaking of gender, what are you hoping for, Aaron?

Aaron Smith:
A girl.

Jennifer Smith:
So does Olive.

Aaron Smith:
Go ahead.

Jennifer Smith:
I was just going to say, Olive really wants a sister.

Aaron Smith:
She’s been praying for a sister since before Wyatt was born.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. And she was really excite that God answered her prayer that I would even be pregnant, because she’s been praying for a long time. Pretty much since she found out Drewitt was a boy. She’d been praying that I would get pregnant again.

Aaron Smith:
And she’s pretty confident it’s a girl.

Jennifer Smith:
Well actually-

Aaron Smith:
So-

Jennifer Smith:
A few days ago, she came in our room in the morning and said-

Aaron Smith:
Oh she had a dream.

Jennifer Smith:
She was so excite she goes, I had the best dream, your baby was a girl.

Aaron Smith: So whenever our kids say they had bad dreams, I’m like hey why don’t you think about good things? Have a dream about the baby, have a dream about Heaven, or try and give them other things to think about.

Jennifer Smith:
Or cupcakes.

Aaron Smith:
Whatever they were thinking about. So gender, we’re going to find out this time.

Jennifer Smith:
But just as a side note, we always tell our kids, because they do always hope for a certain one, and we get caught up in this too and so as a family we just always remind each other, but whatever God gives us, He’s the one that gives us a boy or a girl, and we’re going to be so excited no matter what it is.

Aaron Smith:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). And we are, whatever it is. Boy, girl, but a girl, just I don’t know, I want another girl.

Jennifer Smith:
Sounds special.

Aaron Smith:
I kind of want another girl, for my daughter, she wants a little sister so bad. I want to divulge something that is probably going to tell everyone listening how crazy we are.

Jennifer Smith:
Now I’m sitting over here worried.

Aaron Smith:
I know. Well, yes we’re hoping for a girl, but what were we actually hoping for before you went to your first appointment?

Jennifer Smith:
Oh. Okay. So, every time I’m pregnant and I go to … Before my first ultrasound-

Aaron Smith:
Every single time.

Jennifer Smith:
I’ve always prayed for twins.

Aaron Smith:
Why is that.

Jennifer Smith:
And I know I’m not the only one out there that does this, maybe, no.

Aaron Smith:
Maybe not on the fifth pregnancy.

Jennifer Smith:
You guys I was still hoping for twins. But it’s not, it’s just one.

Aaron Smith:
We were literally hoping for twins.

Jennifer Smith:
I think we have, well I have such a strong desire for it, because I was a twin, I am a twin.

Aaron Smith:
You weren’t was, you are a twin.

Jennifer Smith:
I know, I am a twin and I loved growing up having a twin. I have a brother, and I felt like we were best friends growing up, and that was just really fun. We live down the street from each other and it’s just having that closeness in a relationship is super special. I don’t know what it is about it.

Aaron Smith:
You also have several other sets of twins in your family.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah, my mom’s side had like four sets.

Aaron Smith:
But no one’s had twins yet.

Jennifer Smith:
I know, everyone says it skips a generation, so watch all these [crosstalk 00:20:38].

Aaron Smith:
Yeah, so your generation doesn’t have any [inaudible 00:20:39].

Jennifer Smith:
All of our kids kids.

Aaron Smith:
All of our kids are going to have sets of twins one after another.

Jennifer Smith:
Olive, mom I had another set of twins.

Aaron Smith:
She’s going to be like I have seven kids already, three pregnancies. Yeah, so no we’re only having one though, but that’s okay. We’re stoked about it. So, here’s the next question, are we ready for this?

Jennifer Smith:
You sound so negative.

Aaron Smith:
Well, it’s a serious question, are we ready?

Jennifer Smith:
Well, I think that it’s a silly question, because I think that we will be ready once the baby comes, like right no it’s just a growth season for us of preparing our hearts for the baby, once it’s outside of my womb. Because inside I feel like it’s a little bit easier, because I don’t know.

Aaron Smith:
Physically you’re sick and all, but the baby’s contained. It’s not crawling all over the place.

Jennifer Smith:
Right.

Aaron Smith:
But it does take up room in our bed, so.

Jennifer Smith:
Okay, Aaron and his bed problem. But seriously when I think about that question, are we ready for this? I just think well we will be ready for this, because as we’re experiencing it, it’ll force us to go to the Lord and say, “Help.” And He will help.

Aaron Smith:
Or our community.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah.

Aaron Smith:
I’d say also, there’s no way to be ready for something that hasn’t happened yet.

Jennifer Smith:
That’s what I mean, that’s what I mean.

Aaron Smith:
But I would say we’re more ready for a fifth child, because we’ve had four children. Like after our first child, you know not sleeping an ounce throughout the night thinking that my child’s just going to stop breathing in the middle of the night.

Jennifer Smith:
We were so terrified.

Aaron Smith:
You’re just, you’re up all night, like are they breathing still, are they breathing still? And now put them in the crib, let’s go to sleep and we’re just so tired we just go to sleep and we don’t even think about that stuff. So, I feel like all of the nuances of having children have gotten easier, but we still have no idea what it’s going to be like to have a fifth child.

Jennifer Smith:
Right.

Aaron Smith:
We’re going to have one that’s almost two, one that’s almost three and a half, five, seven, so all of these things are changing. But I guess the things that I think about as you know, the times that I already feel like we need to grow or mature in our current parenting with our current children, so I think about those things. Like, man, we do have to grow up, we do have to change. We have to get better, not that we’re terrible, but we’ve just always got to grow for our kids.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah, along these same lines, you were mentioning that as we mature in our faith, it brings maturity in other areas of our life.

Aaron Smith:
Oh yeah, I was thinking about this just tonight actually, I was thinking how, I was praying, I was thinking, Lord why did you give us so little direct teaching on how to be a parent. Because I’m sure the listeners are thinking like yeah, what the … I just feel I fail so much as a parent, or I have no clue what I’m doing sometimes and I just think, Lord you’ve given us so much specific direction on being a husband, being a wife, being a Christian and being in the church and following you and what this looks like. And then it’s got a handful of verses on being a parent.

Aaron Smith:
But I feel like the Lord literally, immediately revealed to me, well if I grow and mature in my faith, like you said, if I walk closer and closer to Christ, that’s going to affect my parenting. I’m going to be more patient, which is one of the things I was praying for tonight, is I feel like I’m impatient with my kids. So the Bible doesn’t need to teach me how to be patient with my kids, I need to learn to be patient because that’s the fruit of the spirit. Like walk in that fruit of the spirit, so if I walk in the spirit and I don’t gratify the desires of my flesh, then my children will benefit from that fruit. They’re going to see a patient father, a gentle father, goodness, faithfulness, kindness, all of these things that the spirit produces in me. Which is what my kids need and deserve and that makes me a better parent if I do those things.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. As you’re talking it makes me think of that scripture where just the interaction of Jesus with children, and we’re always trying to model our lives after Christ and we want to follow his example, and so I thought it’s be fun to share this scripture in light of sharing about children today.

Jennifer Smith:
So, Matthew 19:13 through 15 says, “Then children were brought to him, that he might lay his hands on them and pray, the disciples rebuked the people, but Jesus said, ‘Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the Kingdom of Heaven,’ and he laid his hands on them, and he laid his hands on them, and they went away” And I just felt like he had all the patience in the world to just say, “No, let them come. Come on.”

Aaron Smith:
I think that’s awesome.

Jennifer Smith:
I think it’s beautiful.

Aaron Smith:
And if we can have a little bit of that.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah, right.

Aaron Smith:
Let the children come to the bed, I guess, but then they went away, so, I’m just kidding. No, I mean that’s a good point is God’s heart.

Jennifer Smith:
Toward children.

Aaron Smith:
Toward children, I mean they are what he’s doing in the world. Our children, children in general are what God’s doing in the world, it’s the reproduction of his original creation, which is awesome, and I love that.

Jennifer Smith:
I got to share this story really quick, because it’s so fresh in my mind, but a few weeks ago I had the opportunity to be a part of a writers retreat, and there were some commonalities throughout each person that was there, but we were all women, we all love the Lord, and we’re all authors of either blogs or social media, or books. And I just thought it was such a unique experience, it was my first time being there. And throughout each session that we were together, and engaging and dialoguing, there was this theme that kept coming up and it was that you could hear it in the way people shared about what they were working on or what they were doing. And it was that no matte what, my family comes first, no matter what my children comes first.

Jennifer Smith:
So if I am working on this project and it has to be put on hold, I will do that, because I care about my family first, and I just love that. I love that these women’s hearts were there to serve in a way of using their gift to write, but no matter what, their family came first.

Aaron Smith:
And you’re not talking even before husband, but you’re talking about career, business, passions, your family, your parenting-

Jennifer Smith:
What I’m saying is, their husband and parenting was even above all of those things.

Aaron Smith:
Like far above.

Jennifer Smith:
Yes, and it just kept coming out in the smallest and simplest of ways throughout our conversations together, but at the end of the day all of us agreed that, that was an important value that we had. And so I was encouraged especially knowing that I just found out I was pregnant with our fifth, that this calling on my life to share my gift with the world doesn’t supersede my role as a mother. And the important work that I’m doing in my children’s lives.

Aaron Smith:
And that goes the same for me. All of these things that we do are “ministry”, our online, our books, I hope I convey this often enough and well enough that none of those things come before the discipling of my children or my relationship with you. But I should be able to do them, together, and do them well. But there’s been times that I’m like, I need to change my priority order right.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. I just really felt like I needed to share that too, because you know we’re jumping into a different season too where Eliot’s growing up, and I’m home schooling and with more children that requires more of me, of mom being home and present, and so I can’t work as much. Even if that’s my desire to, even if I wanted to write more or I think about blogging, because I get filled up being able to share my words with people, but I just felt like I had to let go of that, knowing that when the Lord allows me that time to write, then I can do it.

Aaron Smith:
Do you feel like, and I’m asking this question specifically for someone listening that might need the answer to it, do you feel like there’s any more important ministry than your mothering and your teaching our children?

Jennifer Smith:
I think that is the most important thing.

Aaron Smith:
Right.

Jennifer Smith:
And I don’t want to look back 20 years from now, and be the successful author, whoever, and say, “Well yeah but my children aren’t, whatever.” Fill in the blank, you know, I don’t want to have any regrets there. So, my attention right now, my heart is directed towards what is my role as a mother and how can I lead my children well? How can I make sure that I’m fulfilling my role with you, as a wife? And what’s really cool about that is when I’m being obedient in these things, the Lord does give me room over here to do any extras that I feel like I should be doing.

Aaron Smith:
Right. And it doesn’t mean we threw away these specific ministries that God’s given us, now if we needed to we would.

Jennifer Smith:
We actually talked about this when I first found out that I was pregnant, I was really worried about my capacity, and we had a talk about it, because I was worried that even podcasting would be hard for me. But we talked about it, and then we got counsel, we sought out some friends who could give us an external perspective on what we were going through, because we don’t want to miss the mark here. We don’t want to put ourselves in a position where-

Aaron Smith:
We put something above our most important ministry.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. So we’re just working this out, and we just want to be honest with you guys. But for right now, I feel really good about being able to podcast with you, and share this content with our listeners, so I just feel comfortable sharing all of that and hopefully it encourages someone who might be having that conflict because I know it happens in today’s world where you-

Aaron Smith:
Especially with social media.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah.

Aaron Smith:
I need to have this thing, or I need to grow this thing, or I need to-

Jennifer Smith:
Mm-hmm (affirmative). It can happen really fast.

Aaron Smith:
Which those things aren’t bad in themselves, but if our priorities get mixed up, if we put those things above God, especially not God, but if we put them above our spouse, above our children, and our discipleship of our children, cultivating of our home and family and growing in the Lord together, yeah that could be bad, and we don’t want to be that. So we’re constantly going back and making sure that our foundations are right.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah.

Aaron Smith:
So the other question that I’m sure people are thinking, do you feel like your house is too small, and what’s going to happen with our car?

Well, about the house being too small, I don’t know who all, unless they know us personally would know … I don’t know if they would ask that question because nobody knows house sizes.

Aaron Smith:
Let me just tell people, we don’t have a huge house.

Jennifer Smith:
We don’t have a huge house, but to answer that question I would say I feel like there’s still room because the kids are really small. So even though there’s a lot of them, they share rooms.

Aaron Smith:
I also lean on the side of, now I would love more room, of course, not going to pretend that I’m like, small’s good. No, I would love more room, but I’m also a huge advocate … Like, I wouldn’t mind if they shared beds, I shared a bed for a long time in my house and it would teach them to be less selfish. But yeah, we can do triple decker bunk-beds.

Jennifer Smith:
We can get creative.

Aaron Smith:
We can have like bed drawers, I don’t know if that’s a thing.

Jennifer Smith:
I’ve heard of people having way less.

Aaron Smith:
Yeah, people do it with way less than what we have.

Jennifer Smith:
When you put things in perspective, I don’t know, it just makes you feel like … I don’t know, when I think about our house I think we have plenty of room, but if we ever had the chance to make more room, we’d probably do that in the future.

Aaron Smith:
Now our car.

Jennifer Smith:
We’re maxed out.

Aaron Smith:
Do we actually have room in our car?

Jennifer Smith:
I don’t think so, so we have a Suburban, but we have the Captain seats. So, I think that we’ll have to either get a bench.

Aaron Smith:
But I can’t even find one.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah, we have to figure the car situation out.

Aaron Smith:
Well we have two cars, we could drive around in two cars if we have to, we’ve known people that have done that.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah.

Aaron Smith:
But a big old van, probably, like a 15 passenger.

Jennifer Smith:
We think about these things, but we’re not worried by them.

Aaron Smith:
But I’m sure people wonder, like how do you do your car?

Jennifer Smith:
I know Aaron wanted to go straight to a Sprinter and I was just imagining myself driving around a 15 passenger van going, that’s just hilarious.

Aaron Smith:
They’re so cool though.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. It’s a lot of space.

Aaron Smith:
We have a ton of people that drive around in Sprinters in our town, but they’re like camper Sprinters.

Jennifer Smith:
They’re like souped up.

Aaron Smith:
Yeah, they fit like four people.

Jennifer Smith:
They’re awesome though.

Aaron Smith:
They’re really awesome, but I don’t want one of those.

Jennifer Smith:
Okay, so here’s a hard question. How do we afford it? How do you afford having a big family?

Aaron Smith:
Well.

Jennifer Smith:
Kids equal money.

Aaron Smith:
They do. Well I’ll say this, I know we can afford it with our income and God’s really blessed us, and allowed us to live off of our ministry and the books we’ve written. But where we’re at now is not how it always has been. I feel like as we’ve had more children, we’ve increased and grown, and we’ve made wise decisions, we’ve been faithful. We’ve tried making really good decisions on work and how we made money, and how we saved money, how we spent our money. So, I would say in this day and age, probably it could be hard, but I think the trick is doing what the Bible says, and being faithful, good stewards. Making wise decisions, all I know is we can afford it and we’ve continued to trust the Lord.

Jennifer Smith:
That’s kind of what I was thinking, is that when you trust the Lord it doesn’t matter what the thing is that you’re trusting Him for or about, you’re just trusting Him and you’re praying, and you’re sharing those requests with Him. And you’re making known what your needs are, even though He already knows, and that’s I don’t know, I just love that relationship with God where we get to come to Him, even if we’re worried about it or have some concerns and then he gets to show us what we need to do.

Aaron Smith:
And this is what I know, and you even mentioned this to me, is if something drastically changed in our finances, you know whatever that may be, I’m just going to go figure it out.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. Get creative.

Aaron Smith:
That’s what we do, we’re like I have to go work somewhere and I’ll make phone calls to find that job, and the reason I know I will do that is because I’ve done it. Before we had kids and we tried finding work, in what was it, 2008?

Jennifer Smith:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Aaron Smith:
2009. Right in the middle of the recession, and no one was hiring. I went and worked for free for someone for almost three weeks.

Jennifer Smith: And then they gave you the job, paying.

Aaron Smith: To prove to them, and then they started paying me, but that’s how I think, is well I’m going to do what it takes. Currently God’s blessed us for what we do in our work and our ministry, we can support ourselves and we can pay for things. But if something changed, I’m not going to just give up. I’m going to go get a job, and work.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. Okay, well what things are harder with a bigger family? I just thought that was an interesting question.

Aaron Smith:
Going out to eat, anywhere.

Jennifer Smith:
Finding a big enough table.

Aaron Smith:
Yeah. Finding a restaurant that will let you bring all your kids.

Jennifer Smith:
For me it’s-

Aaron Smith:
You got to go to loud, big family restaurants.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah.

Aaron Smith:
That’s what you’ve got to do. That give some sort of free thing like chips and salsa, or bread.

Jennifer Smith:
There’s lots of those.

Aaron Smith:
So that you can have a-

Jennifer Smith:
[inaudible 00:37:11].

Aaron Smith:
These are tricks of the trade right here, okay.

Jennifer Smith:
I was going to say, taking photos, because like a selfie with you is like here snap this, and you look at the camera and you smile on cue.

Aaron Smith:
They don’t have long enough selfie sticks, for the size family that we have.

Jennifer Smith:
Okay, but the kids don’t have long enough attention span, so you can’t get everyone smiling at the same time.

Aaron Smith:
You can maybe get two thirds of them to look at the same time, but then they’re looking right past the camera, or they’re … Photos that’s a funny thing.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. A little bit harder with bigger families is bath time, because it just takes them longer.

Aaron Smith:
Oh that’s true.

Jennifer Smith:
We have a lot of littles, so I think it’ll feel different once our olders are getting older.

Aaron Smith:
Oh, speaking of taking time, I pride ourselves in how fast we get in and out of the car. Even with four kids.

Jennifer Smith:
Okay. But we’re going to have five now.

Aaron Smith:
Well, we don’t have a car that fits them, so we’ll have to leave one somewhere, or.

Jennifer Smith:
No. No.

Aaron Smith:
No, yeah, things that are harder … you know what’s hard? Coordinating, like if I’m going to take some kids, going with all the kids anywhere by myself.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. Just being mindful of that because our kids are so small. We have four and seven.

Aaron Smith:
Two of them are potty trained but still need help. I can’t just say, “Okay, go to the bathroom I’ll wait out here.” So, bathroom issues.

Jennifer Smith:
Bathroom, yeah.

Aaron Smith:
That’s a hard thing, it’s almost a bit like the diapers, like I wish you were in a diaper right now. It’s awesome that they’re potty trained, but the diaper’s so much more convenient, which is funny because early on with less kids, you’re like, diapers what? I can’t wait until you’re potty trained. This is the thing with growing families. Okay.

Jennifer Smith:
Moving on.

Aaron Smith:
Here’s a question that we actually do get asked a lot, are we done?

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah, or this one, do you guys have a number?

Aaron Smith:
Like a number in mind.

Aaron Smith:
Yeah.

Jennifer Smith:
Do you have a number?

Aaron Smith:
Yeah. Like when are stopping, essentially, it’s like have you had enough yet? Is your quiver full enough.

Jennifer Smith:
Aaron just, okay you’re quoting a scripture that I brought up, but you’re being silly about it. I want to share it.

Aaron Smith:
Well, just share the scripture and I won’t be silly about it.

Jennifer Smith:
Okay. Hold on, but you didn’t answer the question.

Aaron Smith:
I was trying to skip it.

Jennifer Smith:
Do you have a number?

Aaron Smith:
Okay. I don’t have a number.

Jennifer Smith:
You don’t?

Aaron Smith:
And that doesn’t mean I’m, how do I say this? This pregnancy specifically has brought up some deep conversations with me and you, maybe we can go into those another episode, but it’s not that I don’t have a number, like, oh you know if we have 24 kids I’m totally cool with that. Actually, that terrifies me to think about that, but just knowing where my heart’s out of God, I want you to guide us in this, and I want to trust you, it’s irrelevant. Like having a number is irrelevant, if that makes sense?

Jennifer Smith:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Aaron Smith:
So, I don’t know. Because to be honest, it’s highly unlikely because we get pregnant really easy, but we could just stop having kids out of nowhere. It could just happen, we’ve known people that they’ve had a bunch of kids and then boom, just they didn’t have any more kids. Or it took them a long time and then they had their next kids years later. So, a number to me in my mind, the way I think about it, is its irrelevant because it’s not like how I think about trusting God in this area is going to change at that number. Does that make sense?

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah.

Aaron Smith:
So I just don’t think about a number.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. So we don’t have a number. I’m with Aaron on all of this, we don’t have a number and we don’t know when we’ll be done, because we’re just at this point taking it one pregnancy at a time, and trusting the Lord with each pregnancy.

Aaron Smith:
It’s impossible to know what’s around the corner.

Jennifer Smith:
What that looks like.

Aaron Smith:
We don’t know what God’s doing in our life, we literally don’t know how our bodies are going to be next year, or tomorrow. I mean, not to sound weird, but we just don’t know things. I just don’t want to make assumptions about my future right now. I don’t know.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. Okay, so the scripture that I wanted to share with you guys is Psalm 127, one through five. “Unless the Lord builds the house those who build it labor in vain, unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain, it is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for He gives to His beloved, sleep. Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward, like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of ones youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them, he shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.”

Jennifer Smith:
So I really love this passage when it comes to talking about children, and even though it says, “Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them.” It still doesn’t say how many to put in that quiver, that’s okay, you don’t need a number. But it does say that, “Children are a heritage from the Lord, and the fruit of the womb.”

Jennifer Smith:
So when I read that, I go-

Aaron Smith:
A reward, it calls children a reward.

Jennifer Smith:
A reward. That is so beautiful to me.

Aaron Smith:
I love that it puts it in the same sentence of, “For he gives his beloved sleep.” It’s almost like God’s like, parents are going to think this is funny. Eating the bread of anxious toil. But I feel like this is, all the things that children might cause in our life, like we toil, we’re anxious for our children and God’s like, no, no I give you sleep. So I think we could unnecessarily add anxiousness and toil to our life in trying to control all of this, and we just can’t. Or I guess we can, we desire not to in our home.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. So one question that I really feel like is an important one to ask, is how do you share your attention with each kid? Because with Elliot he had us for two and a half years before I had Olive.

Aaron Smith:
I know and he reminds us of that all the … I’m just kidding.

Jennifer Smith:
No, he does not.

Aaron Smith:
Remember the days…

Jennifer Smith:
No. But with each kid, there is truth to the capacity of you only have so much of you, and to give, but I don’t know, explain that.

Aaron Smith:
A perfect way to explain it, I think I even mentioned it one time in another podcast, like last year, one of the earlier podcasts. As we have more children, it’s impossible to give each one of our children equal time and attention. Now we can really cultivate individual relationships, and be intentional, and I can go on a daddy date with one, and a daddy date with another, and we can cultivate that. But there’s just no way to give each child what you could give them if you only had one. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing, I actually believe it’s a good thing and the reason I believe that is, as our kids grow, God’s doing a lot of things. Not only are the parents involved in how we raise them, and what we teach them and what we show them, but there’s also now siblings and they have to learn, and share and realize that it’s not all about them, and they have to give time to their sibling to mom and dad.

Aaron Smith:
And they have to share the attention, and they don’t get all of it. They have to split it.

Jennifer Smith:
There’s a lot of growth opportunity for all of the kids, and the parents.

Aaron Smith:
Well, and for us.

Jennifer Smith:
And the parents.

Aaron Smith:
Yeah. So I think it’s how God intended it. Now that doesn’t mean if someone has only had one child that they’re going to be totally broken, but that child will have a harder time learning what it means to share and give attention away, and not have it all to themselves, and that’s a reality. It’s an only child thing, but on the other hand you have many children and they do have to learn to give away time, and that they can’t have what they want all the time, which is hard. It literally sometimes crushes us, we’re like we can’t love them the way we want, or we can’t … But then that challenges us and actually makes us grow and realize that we can’t be our children’s saviors, we can’t be everything to our children, they need Christ.

Aaron Smith:
So at the end of the day, the very thing that we wish we can give to them, we couldn’t give to them anyway. All we can do is point them to the one who can. Now that doesn’t mean we intentionally deprive them of love and things like that.

Jennifer Smith:
Never.

Aaron Smith:
No. I’m just saying, I’m not saying we manufacture that situation, I’m just saying the reality of not being able to give them everything, not being able to fully love them and give them everything that they emotionally and spiritually need because we’re divided, is necessary. So that’s just my thoughts on this, and it’s not fully fleshed out but I just feel like it’s part of God’s design that our kids would learn to need him, because we can’t be that for them.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah. Well, when I think about that question I just think about how things have been going for the four kids that are outside of the womb right now, and I’d just like to encourage parents that we have such an incredible amount of time to invest in them, together as a family unit. So even though they may not all get that individual one-on-one time, you do get to spend quality time when you do stuff like family Bible time or around the dinner table, or playing with them on the ground. And you don’t want to miss those opportunities, that is your time to invest in your kids and maybe it’ll be when you’re on the back porch and you call one of them over, or the other ones are playing and you just get-

Aaron Smith:
You just whisper something into them, or-

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah, or you get two minutes to have a conversation with them, and you talk about stuff that they like, and you find those moments to invest and build up those relationships with them, individually amidst the group. So I’ve been really encouraged by that in my relationship with the kids.

Jennifer Smith:
I wanted to share another scripture, and I know we’ll be wrapping up soon, but if you guys haven’t dug into Psalm 139 yet, I really encourage you to, and look at it from the perspective of you once as a baby, and your relationship with God. And if you’re a parent, look at it from the perspective of your children. It’s just so beautiful, it’s so beautiful, but something that stuck out to me as I read it more recently, was Psalm 139, verse 16, it says, “Your eyes saw my unformed substance in your book were written every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.” And so you get this really beautiful picture of how God intricately wove a baby inside of the mother’s womb, but then there’s this small verse about how the days that were formed for me, like God formed not just me, and my body and who I am, but He also formed the days that were going to be before me and how I was going to walk through them.

Jennifer Smith:
And something that stood out to me is, in this first trimester I’ve been the sickest that I ever have been in a pregnancy and it was really difficult because I had four other kids to tend to. Thankfully it was summer time and it was a slower time, and so we just played a lot, but even in those mundane days where you’re not feeling well, or they’re just slow and you’re hanging out with toddlers, those were days that the Lord formed for me, and I get to embrace those and savor them. I don’t know, I just thought it was really beautiful.

Aaron Smith:
That’s great. I love that. And so before we close I want to read one more piece of scripture, and it’s in the Old Testament also, it’s in Jeremiah 29, it’s where we get the famous verse, Jeremiah 29:11, if you don’t know what that is, you should look it up. But it’s a pretty awesome part of Jeremiah, and it’s right after the Israelites have been taken into captivity into Babylon. You know they were taken from their land, they’re taken into captivity, not an ideal situation. But what’s awesome about this is the picture that we get from it, because we are currently held captive in a Babylon. We’re exiles, as believers we’re not in our home, we are ambassadors in a foreign land, right?

Aaron Smith:
So, very similar to Israelites, we live in a Babylon, we live in a home that’s not ours, and I just want you to listen to God’s message to the Israelites as they go into this land. Into a foreign land that’s not theirs, into captivity and as exiles. And what’s awesome about this, you know going back to what I was talking about, about fears of this world that we live in, this I believe is still God’s heart for God’s people. Not just the Israelites, but Christians, not that we replaced the Israelites, but when I read this you’ll understand.

Aaron Smith:
So, it says this, it says in Jeremiah 29, verses three through six, “The letter was sent by the hand of Elasah, the son of Shaphan, and Gemariah the son of Hilkia whom Zedekiah king of Judah sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, it said this, ‘Thus says the Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles who I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, build houses and live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce, take wives and have sons and daughters, take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage that they may bear sons and daughters, multiply there and do not decrease'” So, in this time of exile God doesn’t tell them, just get by, just wait, don’t worry about trying to settle in.

Aaron Smith:
He says, “Build houses, have children, plant gardens.”

Jennifer Smith:
I feel like what’s really cool about this, sorry to interrupt you, but in the midst of being exiles, and being somewhere that’s not familiar you have these few verses that are so comforting and build familiarity through family. You know building houses and experiencing marriage and multiplying through birth. Those are really comforting things to me when I think about building a home, and a family. I don’t know.

Aaron Smith:
Well, and they didn’t understand it then, the Israelites, but God was giving this command not just for them, but for the lineage that was going to eventually bring us the Messiah, Christ. He’s telling, don’t decrease, multiply, grow, become the nation that I want you to be. And so what made me think of this is, we just had this baptism at a river, and we started off as one small home church and we’ve since now branched off and that we’re three home churches now, and all three home churches got together this last Sunday and we did a baptism. And several people and children got baptized, and it was awesome and there were so many people. Where it started with this eight families, there was like 50, no there was like 70 families. There were so many people there, and I’m just thinking, how awesome is this?

Aaron Smith:
And I was standing there watching all the children play in the water and I was thinking, all these children weren’t here a couple of years ago. And so all I thought is, in a few years we’re going to triple in size just by having children, and not just oh look we had a bunch of children, but all of us desire to raise our children to know God, to know his word. And so our desires to disciple them, and I was just thinking, when God told the Israelites, he says, “Multiply there, and do not decrease.” He still has that heart for us as Christians, we’re exiles in Babylon currently. Not that Babylon, just the world, we’re in a world that’s not our own, we’re waiting for our Heavenly home.

Jennifer Smith:
Yeah, not of this world.

Aaron Smith:
And God desires us to not decrease. And that is incredible, and it’s not just so there’s a bunch of kids, he desires Godly offspring. Go read Malachi, and you’ll know what I mean. But I just, I thought that was beautiful. He tells these Israelites, this is a terrifying time, and He’s like hey, build houses, plant vineyards, have children, increase. So, I just pray that this encourages you listening that hey, we go through things, we have questions and fears and we have no clue how we’re going to do this. And to be honest almost every day I feel like I don’t know what I’m doing, but God’s good and His grace is enough for us, and we’re having a fifth child.

Jennifer Smith:
And we’re both really excited about it.

Aaron Smith:
And we’re both really excited. And we would hope you’re excited for us too, and be praying for us because we’ve got a journey ahead of us. And as always we end our episodes with prayer, so Jennifer would you pray for us?

Jennifer Smith:
Dear Lord, you are incredible, and we trust you. Trusting you is not always easy for our flesh, but you are trustworthy and your timing is divine. Help our hearts to trust you even more completely. Thank you for our families, thank you for the gift of children, thank you for your provision. We pray that in every season, whether it’s difficult or smooth that we would praise you because you are good. We pray for understanding, we pray for maturity as parents who desire to raise awesome children who know you and love you. We pray we would walk in wisdom every day, and we pray that you would be glorified in our marriages and in our families as we proclaim your truth. We surrender to you Lord, and we ask that you continue to help us in our weaknesses. We boast in your name, in Jesus name, Amen.

Aaron Smith:
Amen. We hope this encouraged you, as always thank you for joining us. You guys are awesome. Have a blessed week, see you next time.

Aaron Smith:
Did you enjoy today’s show? If you did, it would mean the world to us if you could leave us a review on iTunes. Also, if you’re interested you can find many more encouraging stories and resources at marriageaftergod.com and let us help you cultivate an extraordinary marriage.