"You Have Your Hands Full"

Hmmm.....I don't always know how to take this comment. I get it a lot now that I have four (GASP!) children. Sometimes it's said with a smile, other times it's said with a condemning tone. Last week it was even followed up with, "You look like old mother Hubbard." Which, by the way, was the wrong reference....Old Mother Hubbard had an empty cupboard, while it was The Little Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe who had so many children she didn't know what to do. But, back to my original point............what is a person's intent when they say this kind of thing? Is it critical, or is it admiring? Either way, I don't care for it. I am blessed, abundantly & overwhelmingly, by each of my children. I don't feel harried or stressed because I have four; I feel grateful that God has seen fit to share them with me. Also, I'm no supermom or someone to be put on a pedestal & admired. I'm uncomfortable with that status, too. I'm simply living my life, loving & nurturing & raising the children I've been given. And as far as how to respond to the comment in the title, I was given some great advice by two dear sisters in Christ, who each have a quiver full of their own....respond to those comments in a way that blesses the person who spoke them, whether they had good intentions or not. Great advice. Now I'm looking forward to putting that into practice.

"Like arrows in the hand of a warrior,
So are the children of one’s youth.
Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them;
They shall not be ashamed,
But shall speak with their enemies in the gate." Psalm 127: 4-5