And one more makes...twenty!

It's been interesting to watch the reactions to the excited announcement by Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar that they are expecting their 20th child. It seems we are quite discombulated as a culture by the idea that a loving couple might be so...what's the right word?...ah yes, unnecessarily prolific. I mean, maybe back in the day when everyone farmed and people buried as many children as they raised (and often more), maybe such fecundity made sense. But now? In the post-Pill, post-Roe era? Why, such people are as hard to understand as aliens from outer space. I've heard reactions from admiration that one woman could even endure that many pregnancies (one dear friend, who is currently expecting said to Karen, "Just thinking about 18 more babies makes all my lady parts hurt!") to celebration of life (many Christians), to a scolding, don't-you-know-how-babies-happen-yet-you-coupla-rednecks (many on the left side of the media). Interestingly, the same sort of reactions, along the same sort of spectrum, could be found at the recent announcement that the 7 billionth child had just been born this month.

And while I find the thought of adding 16 children to our family fills me with a sense of profound weariness, when I see this lovely family, celebrating new life not as a number, but as a long-awaited joy, my heart fills with joy for them, though I don't know them, at the same time that it weeps for a culture where babies are  not as welcomed bundles of joy, but as a burden to society. May that change. And to all my "young evangelical" friends in search of a cause worth giving your life for so that our culture reflects Gospel values: here's one.