Wednesday, December 17, 2008

the CEO's economy

Agent B was mocking me saying that I am nesting. Maybe so. I thought that I'd have all sorts of time to get ready for our 3rd baby once I had stopped keeping the extra boys I watched for the last 11 months, but then I suddenly realized it's Christmastime and my parents are coming and we are about to have a baby... Plus, I've felt like the CEO has had us on a bit of a hiatus with regards to reaching out to the marginalized, who I am thankful to say, in our small circle of a few families are no longer needy, needy of us, but more and more like friends, just calling from time to time to say hello and update us on what is going on in their lives. However, this morning I have something very awesome to report.

So, I haven't had much time to dwell on this pregnancy. We've already had two, so I wasn't really concerned about having stuff and I've been too busy to really prepare. A little while ago, a friend asked me if I needed anything. She had her daughter not quite a year ago and was wondering if I needed anything or wanted to use her clothes. I said that I had saved "unisex" clothes, but not any of our daughter's things and so was a little sad not to have girl clothes for this baby. She said "I've got you covered, I'll pass on all my totally cute girl clothes to you." She brought me her 0-3month clothes and last night I was going through them. They are so precious and beautiful and plentiful. Then I went to my "unisex" boxes, which I had thought were plenty and was shocked to realize that we only had a few days of clothes for the baby at each stage.

You see, I had saved our son's clothes over a year, knowing we wanted more children. But when we found out our second was a girl and that Princess' sister was having a boy, we felt it was time to get the "river" flowing again. All our boy clothes had been given to us. In fact, to this day, we have bought only some night time t-shirts and socks for him and he's 4 years old. The same with my daughter. We haven't bought her any clothes. People have always just given us clothes and family have made or bought them new clothes too. We felt that the clothes needed to be shared. Who were we to keep them when they had all been given to us in the first place? (I'm not saying everyone has to do this, but for us, that is what we felt). Plus, who knows if we'll have a boy again?

When we had our daughter, Princess' sister had a girl too, so we just did the same passing it on. I felt like the CEO said that he would always provide and not to hold on to it all. I was nearly in tears last night when I saw that He had fulfilled His promise. I really had thought we had a bunch of clothes. I remember feeling overwhelmed with all the clothes my daughter had and here we opened up the boxes to find we had given it ALL away! Then the wisdom of the CEO hit me. My daughter was born in the summer and this baby is coming in Jan., which means that the clothes would have all been the wrong season if I had kept them. The unisex stuff is all the right season somehow and the baby we were handing clothes down to, eventually grew too big to be getting our hand-me-downs. This means that at about 18months, when my friend's daughter will be wearing her clothes longer and may not be able to pass them to us in time and when the seasons will no longer matter, we will have our own girl clothes to use again.

I didn't even realize that we were down to crunch time with the baby's arrival and that she would have been near naked if the CEO hadn't already taken care of the situation- AS HE HAD SAID- all that time ago. Give and you will receive and your joy will be complete. His way is better. Our old clothes would not have worked, but these are the perfect ones and the perfect timing and in the giving and receiving, we know both the Lord's provision and a friend's love. The kingdom is so awesome!!!

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