Our QF Story

From before we married we were open to having children as the Lord gave them to us and purposed to avoid all chemical birth control. We had our first two children 16 months apart -very close together. Their conception was 5 months after marriage and 5 months after birth of first baby. I was called a ” fertile Mertle.” Everyone was surprised we ‘let conception happen’ especially because they were eventful pregnancies with hypermesis, pre-term labor, and bed-rest in the mix. We also were not financially stable and found ourselves moving more than once a year in search of an affordable living situation. Then at 18 months old our eldest boy lost all his early speech and our second son proved to be on the strong willed hyper side. All that to say we had more than the terrible twos to deal with. Nothing was easy -at one point I even found myself living in the upstairs rooms of an elderly friend -pregnant with a toddler, doing dishes in the bath tub, fighting the summer heat with no air-conditioning on an upper floor all day and night, laundry was being done at the laundry mat… my husband was trying to go to school and work and was not home much.
Finally my husband found a job that would support us okay and a townhouse apartment. We made the move but this left us with no local friends or relatives as it was many miles west of where we were from. This was the beginning of years of being pretty much alone in life accept for our relationship with the Lord.

We were using the barrier method ’sometimes’ after my second son -when we were stretched to our limits in all these circumstances. Finally we felt at ease and desired another baby very much- though things weren’t perfect. We became pregnant! But within the first week of recognizing the baby we lost him/her. We had decided we were so fertile that we needed to be in control when circumstances dictated! And now we were faced with the reality that we had little control of these things. If it were up to us we would not ever ‘loose’ a baby. We decided I must need to let my body heal and continued in use of barrier method for 3-4 months. In my frustration I thought maybe the Lord let that happen because we needed to make more of an effort to get out of the apartment living that was not ideal for raising a family. So we tried to make that happen and the Lord let many unusual things happen to postpone finding a home. We’d lost a deal on a house I had my heart set on! and finally we just gave up trying to control things -it wasn’t really what we ever wanted to do anyway. The circumstances kinda scared us into clinging to ‘being responsible’ and taking charge of our lives. We conceived again and delivered our first girl within a year of the miscarriage! Then and only then did the Lord make the way for our move to our first home. We then conceived our second daughter 5 months after our move. And this only happened because we listened to our hearts and the Lord not our emotions and circumstances.
As I type this while holding my eighth baby -the fifth to be in my arms. I realize that in those earlier days were lessons that we needed to be forced to go through. If we had not I doubt we would be so strongly QF minded. And I doubt we could have come through the last few years as close to the Lord -by far more trying years than our earlier marriage.
Looking at our life as a whole makes the reality of the Lord’s work in our lives powerful and enables us to let go of the tendency to try to control the future more easily.

These last few years have been so incredible. So full of blessings and trials that have made us more trusting of our heavenly father and each other.

We’d moved to our first ‘mortgaged’ home on our own with no help and three little children in tow. Settled in and started making the house and property our HOME.

A year later Mike was making less income then the year we started purchasing the house. He wasn’t being given nearly as much overtime, he tried to take other positions within the foods plant and they all turned out to be only temporary.

One huge blessing that took place through it all was that after working mostly third shifts for the first several years of our marriage he was able to transition into a second shift schedule that is a lot more condusive to our lifestyle.

Then the plant was planning to close -for a year we heard snipets of these plans but since there are few jobs in this area Michael did not feel led to jump the gun and get something else in place. He did go to some interviews but really overall the Lord wasn’t leading that direction. There were many lay offs and some frustration was building as our already frugal lifestyle was getting truly minimalist!

We weren’t thrilled at getting help through government agancies but did put in application for food stamps and were turned down because although he made well below the income guidelines for our family size if he wanted the freedom to take extra hours we would always go over the minimum of weekly pay that a family could have and still qualify for food supplimentation. Michael chose to keep plugging along with whatever schedule and hours the plant provided for us. This meant a second job was out of the question because they gave combinations of shifts that wouldn’t allow a second job to fit in and really another job would not have paid as well hourly.

Then it happened 50 of the newer employees were let go and many of the ones that had planned to retire from this company either saught another job or took early retirements. Families were loosing their homes and vehicles -couples were divorcing. Fear was spreading as many other local plants were closing as well as local groceries and other small businesses.

We were praying more and working harder for frugality in meeting the basic needs of our family.

A storm wass brewing in our midst. The month that the plant was scheduled to close we inncurred a huge loss. Our van was severally compromised by a freak blow of the engine. The passanger van had just been maintenced several times as some body work was being done from a collision. How could new oil turn to sludge?

We still owed several thousand dollars on this vehicle -our only vehicle.

We had other bills that were mounting though we had no way to make regular payments on them we did make good on our obligations the best we could. We even paid off some things.

Our youngest was a year old when we got good news -the plant wasn’t going to close the city was going to be able to give enough incentives for ConAgra be willing to invest in the older facility. Though there is an aftermath to move through most families are being able to slowly regain some stablity.

In some ways the new found job security and knowing about how much income to expect for the coming year was just the beginning of our financial future. We had a lot of decisions to make. We felt after counseling with a few sources of knowledgable professionals that we needed to file a bankruptcy. This was devistating to us emotionally. We felt this was going to be a blemish upon our testimony for living by faith in our lack of family planning. I was internalizing a lot of stress and in the long run this hurt us more. We suffered the loss of a new conception in August 2007. And again in late January 2008. We had times all we could see was the LOSS we’d gone through in such a short period of time.

The Lord encouraged us in so many ways. We have many things to be
thankful for. Even during all the stress of financial loss, times of waiting for needs to be met, and the miscarriages we were maturing as individuals and as a couple. All the trials were solidifying our faith.

I especially learned more in the area of submission to my husband and his decisions. I also learned more about prayer, submitting to the Lord, and reasoning with my fellow man. Having to make informed decisions about weighty issues in our lives sure brings a spiritual confidence in humility.

One special touch of the Lord was the week in August I expected that I was pregnant we didn’t have any spare money not even for a $1 home testing or the gas for a trip to the pregnancey center in the neighboring town. We did need a few things we could get from the local grocery. So I carefully spent the little we had and stood waiting in the parking lot for my husband to return from an errand. a lady came up to me and said she felt the Lord leading her to give me a money gift of twenty dollars -a family with young children and all. I had only two of the children with me and she had no idea my husband had been laid off and I might be carrying another baby in my womb.I instantly teared up knowing it was the Lord trying to encourage us.

I gave her a big hug and thanked her for responding to the Spirit!

When Michael returned to collect us I told him what had happened and asked could we go to the dollar store for a test. He agreed.

We were so excited to find ourselves expecting again. A bit in a daze yet excited. I wanted to tell everyone but decided to wait as I wanted more time to ponder what adding another to our family meant. I had to refrain from sharing with one of the librarians at the library that afternoon when I was using their ellison machine for a homeschool project. Unfortunately the bubble burst that evening when I started bleeding. I will always be thankful for the confirmation of the pregnancy and the love we felt from the Lord through the excitement and the sorrow of burying our underdeveloped baby.

The meek will be exhaluted.