Faith & Mustard Seeds

After my husband & I were married we wanted children right away. After two long years we were still childless, and very disappointed. Finally our daughter was born during the third year of our marriage.

While Christmas shopping the next year, I found some Christmas stockings that I just loved. They were crushed velvet with jewel-like buttons and gold trim. They came in four colors. I picked up three for my husband, my daughter and me. I looked at the fourth stocking. With all my heart I wanted to have one more child. But would I be able to? Bystanders may have seen a woman trying to decide what color stockings to buy, but actually I was trying to decide if I had faith that I would have a second child. I bought the fourth stocking.

The next Christmas I pulled out our decorations. There was the fourth stocking. It represented faith, and hope, and longing. I left it in the box and hung the other three. The next year I did the same thing. But the year my daughter turned four, I was pregnant that Christmas. I was so excited, but still the stocking stayed in the box.

The next year I pulled out all four stockings. I told my husband the story of the stocking that had been in the box all these years. See, I had never told anyone about that stocking. I had faith, but just a teeny, tiny faith, built on great hope. If anyone had discouraged me, I might have lost my faith. So instead I just kept it inside, a tiny faith the size of a mustard seed. But now my faith was realized, as I had another child.

Several years have gone by since that Christmas, and at four years old, my youngest just celebrated her fifth Christmas. I had not forgotten about the story per se, but it was in the back of my memory.

As I pulled down the stockings this past week and laid them together to pack them away, I remembered. Tears came into my eyes as I remembered that longing, that hope and that faith, and felt it realized. My children, my family just as I'd dreamed.

What are you longing for today? Have faith, even the size of a mustard seed, that God knows your heart's desire and longs to grant it to you.

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To read another article on faith by me, click over to ithirst and read my article on "The Power of Faith" on the front page, toward the bottom. This is the first of my 4-part feature "The Power of Faith, Love, Hope & Prayer." I'll be writing one article a month there through April.

Matthew 17:20 -- "I tell you the truth, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you."

Psalm 37:4 -- Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.