How Do You Do It?

by prayer, by faith, by miracles

This is one of the questions that total strangers ask me when they learn that my husband and I have nine children. (Right after are they all yours and are you going to have more…)

How do you do it?

I used to think that I was in control of my life. If I worked hard enough, made a good enough plan, hacked away at my goals, I could be anything I wanted to be and do anything I wanted to do. When I became a mother, I thought I would just ace that test as well. Just give me the textbook and let me get to work on it. I thought that word would be consumed by my own identity.

That isn’t how it worked for me.

Mothering children, especially lots of them, and over seventeen years now, has shown me that I am not in control and that it isn’t about me. I can no longer plan even a day of my life and expect it will all go according to schedule. The unexpected is waiting at every corner. The needs never stop. Motherhood is not a textbook operation. It isn’t something you begin to know until you start living it. And for me, living it has become a lifelong lesson in humility, surrender, and ultimate dependence on God. It is something I know that I cannot do. Not on my own.

I have felt the pleasure of God in the lives of these children. They are not numbers. They are not a list of names. They are not stair-steps in a photograph. They are living souls with the spark of beautiful life. Their hearts are tuned to wonder. Their minds are vast landscapes of possibility. Their joy fills a whole room. I am constantly reminded that God loves them even more than we do. He says the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.

The truth is, my husband and I are in over our heads in every way and daily made more aware that this is not something we are doing in our own strength. He has lovingly, gently led us to this place where we are the parents of a large family with needs that push against the borders of our faith. And yet, when we look back over all of these years, we see miracle after miracle of provision.

Last November, I started a notebook to record both my prayers and God’s miraculous answers to them. One one side of the journal, I wrote Prayers/Needs.

On the other, I wrote Milagros/Bendiciones (Miracles/Blessings).

You would not believe the things that I wrote down on those pages. It is humbling to see how great the list of needs have been. Even more humbling to see the kindness of God, reaching down to us through peace that passes understanding, through the words and hands of others to answer prayers they did not even know I had prayed in secret.

We have had tremendous help. The lives of these precious children are in God’s hands. He delights in making his love for them known. We can go to him with every need, every question, every fear and doubt, every anxiety, every decision that must be made. Over the years, my faith has grown to see that God knows what we need better than we know it ourselves. His timing is perfect. He is intimately aquainted with our natures, our needs, our deepest hopes and desires. He has every answer. He is the fulfillment of every longing. We can rest in Him. We can trust Him. We can wait on Him.

Our family photograph is a miracle. (And not just because we got that many people to face the general direction of the camera…) This is a life that I could not have imagined for myself. It is a life that has forced me to be braver than I ever meant to be, to receive riches that were far too great for me to ever earn on my own. My life is full in every sense—every moment is full. Full of needs, yes, but also full of meaning, of wonder when I choose to see it, of joy when I can choose to enter into it. Full of love and learning. Full of God’s grace and goodness. Full of answered prayers. Full of the blessed provision and mercy of God. Full of his lovingkindness. Full to the brim of life and spilling over. Full of faith, full of prayer, full of miracles.

This is how we do it.

Dear friends,

Merry Christmas season to all of you! December is my favorite month of the year. I hope you are finding peace and joy in this season. That you will see his grace all around you.

Love,

Mackenzie

ps. A quick reminder—

I am placing an order for Paloma’s journals tomorrow. It may be some time before we are able to make a second order, and we won’t be getting many extra copies at this time, so if you want one of her beautiful journals, order today! (Click the image to go to our family shop.)

If you would like to go further and and contribute to buying more copies for this first printing of Paloma’s journal, Venmo @MackenzieChester and write “Paloma” in the message box. The more copies we are able to buy in this first printing, the less the journals cost per copy to print. Your support is a great help to us!

Also:

If you haven’t hear Rosie’s new song about snow, you have to listen. Posting it again because it is too good to miss.

She wrote a little about it on her Substack last week. Check it out.

Snow on the Ground

Sending love. Thanks so much for being here.

Mackenzie