children are always blessings

Today in the One Year Bible, we read from Genesis 30:1-31:16. Jacob and Rachel clearly learn nothing from Isaac and Rebekah, and they get into a ridiculous competition with Leah, Jacob's first wife, and have twelve children between them and their servants.

But the take away message is that, each time a new baby is born, it's seen as a blessing.

That's what we need to realize today, too. We do need to take care of our planet, and be good stewards of what God has given us. But we shouldn't buy into the hype that the world is overpopulated and that we need to drastically cut back on having more children in order to save the world from climate change.

God gives us children as great blessings. Sometimes it doesn't FEEL like a blessing, when you have to get up at 2am to feed them, or when you have to change their diapers, or when they become teenagers and begin to hate everyone and everything, including themselves. But they ARE blessings, and when we are old we see how greatly they have blessed our lives, and how empty we would be without them.

God, thanks for giving us the blessing of children. Help us be good parents.