"Happily ever after"

When I was little I used to think that I would help better the world by joining the Peace Corps...........and in between I would be a princess, Miss America, a model, rock star and of course live "happily ever after"
when I got married, my husband would ride up on a white horse (even tho' I am terrified of them) and we would ride off into the sunset..........again "happily ever after".
When the time was right, we would have our perfect family, with three children, which of course would be perfect, too! I would never have a child throwing a tantrum, or being rude....and of course, they would Never be dirty or have a runny nose!
Welllll....right about now I would LOVE to show you my "perfect" family!
I really did try hard to keep everything together for the first three children(which I thought was our limit), but then God interrupted all My plans and started to share His plans with Bill and me.
We asked for counsel about children, and family size...we prayed, we fasted...everyone told us to stop at three. We didn't have peace, so we prayed and waited .after about a month Bill asked me if I had an answer and I asked him.
Now there are fourteen children . We got an answer and obeyed! The only way to do this was by obedience and unity.
After our three children, the twins came along! After this everyone gave up on us!!!!We were told we would Never be able to afford these children(and that's true),we would never be able to offer these children extra benefits(that's true) we were even told by church leaders to STOP having children! I don't believe everyone is called to have a large family, but I KNOW WE WERE! I would rather obey God than man ANY DAY!! God says All things are possible with God!!! I believe
When the children were younger, they thought that their clothes came "from the bag".(sometimes someone would give us their children's old clothes)
God is soooooooooooo good! He does it all! When I had three children I would mop the floor three times a day and vacume a couple times a day. After the twins came (four children two and under and a four year old) I just couldn't! God was showing me that I was so desperately trying to make the outside look good because my insides needed to be cleaned up! Well, nothing is so freeing as coming to the point of I CAN'T!!! I told the Lord that I couln't do it anymore and He just released me to be me!
My children all spit-up..(alot),they had snotty noses and LOVED dirt!! (STILL DO).Nine sons and Sunday Football.
Bill and I learned more about our Lord thru' utter dependance on Him. With our lack God showed Himself as Jehovah- Jireh (our provider)With everything we didn't have God would bring a friend to help, an extra job for Bill and we saw God in our everyday lives.
SO do we have the perfect family? I still have children in the "middle" of their testimoney.they get in trouble, fight with each other (the girls have clothes wars) it's messy here.not my ideal but I wouldn't trade it for anything! We love each other and i know God is at work....and we are living "happily ever after" it's just not how my childish vision was! I also believe that we are all world changers....one heart at a time!