Just One More
Posted by Mary Alice Teti in Family on Tuesday, January 05, 2010 6:00 AM
On Christmas Eve our church was filled to capacity. We managed to arrive early enough to find a pew that was empty and pile in our six children along with their coats, angel wings, and a stuffed lamb for the shepherd, but it seemed like we got the last seats, because everyone who walked in after us had to stand.
I felt awkward, sitting when others didn’t have a place, so when a nice looking man approached our pew I pulled the children closer to me and invited him to sit down. Certainly, on Christmas, there was room for one more, I thought.
One became four as his wife and two little children approached. I put my purse on the floor, sat on my coat and pulled a child onto my lap, and in they squeezed. Our pew, crowded when we first sat down, seemed to expand just enough to accommodate this family.
We parents glanced sympathetically at one another as the children grew restless from the heat of the sanctuary, the length of the homily and the anticipation of Santa, but then our pastor said something that really touched my heart. I wonder, he asked, whether that innkeeper ever found out who it was that he turned away that night in Bethlehem? I wonder whether they couldn’t have found room for Our Lord in that Inn.
I realized that our family has grown to fill an entire pew because the Lord has placed a stirring in my heart that says “can’t you make room for one more?” When we say “yes” to this call, there is always some squeezing to do, some re-arranging, some discomfort even, but the space in our lives seems to multiply and with God’s help we make it work somehow, though some days I don’t understand it myself.
Both Hope and Fear
Once upon a time I used to look around the church and count heads in each pew. When I spotted a mother of more than two or three children I would study her in wonder. How does she get the kids dressed and out the door on time? Does she have any time to herself? Did she have all those children on purpose? How can she meet all of their needs? It was with a certain amount of shock and awe that I admired large families from a distance, not sure whether I hoped or feared having one myself some day.
When my children were very young, there was a mom at playgroup who seemed obsessed with knowing how many children I planned to have. She just could not accept that I didn’t have an answer to this question, even a secret one. I still don’t. I didn’t set out to have a large family, or to avoid one, but I feel that God has gently led my husband and me to understand that it is our vocation to be open to life as much as possible.
We used to say that we would take our children one at a time, which became sort of a joke to us when we had twins. When our twins were born we had four children under age 3. Wow!
Back then it was hard to leave the house at all, so when people commented that my hands were full I didn’t know whether to agree or burst into tears. At that time, it seemed like the “pew” was too crowded, although we really were spending our Masses out pacing in the vestibule. I thought then that we might never have room in our lives for any more children, but two years passed and the question came again: “Can’t you make room for one more?”
No! I wanted to shout, there isn’t room! We are six people in a two bedroom apartment. Not a one of them can even find their own shoes! There isn’t room! Trust me, came the answer, move some things around, make room.
Make Room for Baby
It took six months to accept that, and six more months to conceive, so there is a gap of three years between our older four and our next child. That was a funny time in our lives, the time when we began to realize that if it was indeed our call to have a large family, we were going to have to set up our life to accommodate it. Like shifting our coats and purses in the pew, to make room for baby number five we gave up our apartment in the city and moved to a house in the suburbs.
This was a radical decision for me, but it helped that the baby who caused it has turned out to be the cutest kid ever. His little brother is just 11 months younger, and once again our hands seem very, very full. These days, it is not just feeding and nap schedules we manage, we have to work around the older kids ballet and little league as well.
At the moment, to be very honest, it doesn’t seem like there is any room left over, but now I am surprised to find that God is not asking me anymore, I am asking him.
Please, Lord, give me the capacity to meet the needs of these children I already have and make room for one more. Please, Lord, fill me with the innocent trust in you I had in the beginning, before I knew how hard this would be. Please Lord, let me know when there is, once again, room for just one more.
—Mary Alice Teti graduated from Princeton University in 2000. Since leaving the dorms, she has married, moved six times and had six children. She is currently living in Lawrenceville, New Jersey, and hopes to stay put long enough to hang some curtains. She writes for the group blog Building Cathedrals.
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