Terri and I have not seen each other for years and despite having lived on campus at the same camp for a whole year, we did not get to spend much time together. She and her husband had three children (and I believe one on the way) the year that Shawn and I dated and got engaged in New Hampshire. Life was busy for both of us. Terri's influence on me, however, has been formidable and I often find myself drawing on her example as both a wife and mom.
The Theriault family has since moved to Michigan, where her husband continues to be in full time ministry and they now have six kiddos! I would describe Terri as driven and organized and yet she is completely approachable. I posed the following questions to Terri and she graciously took time out of her busy schedule as a wife and home school mother to thoughtfully answer each one. These are the questions I would have asked Terri if we were sitting in her living room drinking tea together.

Terri, Jason and their utterly adorable brood.
I have highlighted certain portions of the interview because some of Terri's comments struck me in particular at this point in my life.
Opinions today on the size of one's family run the gamut. How do you and your husband approach this issue?
We started out with the mindset of most Americans I would say – let’s have our 2 kids (a boy and girl of course!) and we’ll have our perfect little family. As believers, the Lord was bringing us on a journey of trust. After having our son and then our daughter two years later, we decided our family was complete. After about a year, I started this dialog with the Lord where I felt He was asking if I trusted Him. “Yes, Lord, I trust you!” was my immediate (and proud) reply. “Then trust Me with EVERYTHING. Let Me plan your family.” “No, Lord, that’s just too big. You can have everything BUT THAT!” And so our conversation went for about two years. When our daughter was 3, I found out I was expecting again. I’m ashamed to say that I was disgruntled about this unplanned addition to our family until I felt her move for the first time. It was only then that I realized that I’d been given another gift – that this was a BABY and that this miracle was no less an expression of the love that my husband and I shared than our first two gifts had been. When our second daughter was 3 months old, we attended a conference at our church and I remember the pastor asking if there was anything we were saying “NO” to God about. Continuing to struggle with this call to trust God with everything, I was so broken to realize that not only was I not trusting Him, but I was also putting limits on the ways He might choose to bless us. I saw my three children as gifts from Him, but if I’d had my way, I would have missed out on our second daughter. I couldn’t fathom that! Who was I to decide who should be a part of our family? How many blessings He should bestow on us? I surrendered to Him – and two weeks later, my husband also came to the same point of surrender. We have decided that to live as children of God, we are to trust our Heavenly Father to know what is best for us. Who but the Creator of every precious life, knows the perfect plans He has for our family? Scripture is clear that children are a blessing of the Lord and no where in Scripture does it tell us to limit those blessings. So, we have decided to trust Him with EVERYTHING. The road hasn’t been easy, but it’s been beautiful.
I think a lot of people feel that if you have too many children, some will be neglected or feel less loved. Or you will never be able to have the kind of relationship you are supposed to with each child. We whole heartedly disagree! There is such love present in our home. And our children are always hoping for another announcement of a baby on the way – if they had their way, I think we’d have a dozen! For this mama, one at a time is nice.
On any given day what are your priorities as a wife, mom and home school teacher?
1. My first priority of the each day is to start as a Daughter of my Lord. It took me several years to be disciplined to start my day reading the Word and in prayer. It’s so much more than a discipline now though – it’s my favorite part of the day.
2. I also do all I can to be the help meet my husband needs me to be – he is my priority, second only to the Lord. So that means being available to listen and hear what’s on his heart, supporting his leadership of our family, running and maintaining our home. It’s my goal at the end of each day when he gets home to have dinner ready and make our home a haven for him to return to. The kids are calm (not like I have them sedated, but they aren’t running around crazy!) and the house is orderly. I try to make sure that I’m not so frazzled by the end of the day that I want to dump everything on him the moment he walks in the door and run back out of it myself! Thankfully those days are rare – but they do happen!
3. Since I spend all day every day with my six children, my first role with them is as their mother – listening, disciplining, feeding, encouraging, guiding, soothing, challenging, molding their hearts. I get the awesome (and sometimes overwhelming) joy of also being their teacher. Being both mom and teacher, I get a greater joy when they reach a milestone or grasp a new concept. But my expectations are sometimes excruciating – for them and myself! But we learn and grow together and the Lord refines us through each step.
Overall, my goal each day is to seek His plan for my day and glorify Him in it. I’ve learned to ask Him at the start of each day, “Lord, ordain my day. I have my plans, but I want to do what you have ordained for me today.” So amidst the laundry, the meals, the school lessons, the potty training, nursing the baby, running errands, grocery shopping, paying the bills, getting kids to activities, being a wife… if I walk in His spirit and keep my priorities Biblical by seeking to honor the Lord first, my husband second, my kids third and all else after that, I feel I have had a successful day – and strive to do it all in that order again tomorrow!
What are some practical ways in which you and your husband, Jason, maintain and further your relationship?
I think the most practical way that we have kept our relationship strong is to focus on our relationship as husband and wife over that of being parents. Not that we in any way neglect our kids for the sake of our marriage, but we are mindful that we and our kids remember that we are one flesh. In a tangible sense, this means that when we sit in church or at the dinner table – we are always next to each other. Often I see parents who sit far from one another because they have several children separating them. Our kids are always welcome on our laps, and at our open side, but one side is always reserved for Jason and vice versa. I came from a broken home and never had this modeled for me. As I learned what the Bible says about our relationship with one another superseding that of our relationship with our children, I feared they would feel neglected, rejected or hurt. The opposite is true. Our kids have such comfort and peace knowing that we are so committed to each other. It gives them a security that compares with nothing else. And somehow – because it’s ordained by God – it actually makes our relationships with our children stronger too. One of God’s great mysteries!
For most of our marriage we’ve been faithful to pray together each night at the end of the day. And we pray about the trials that we face as a family, etc. Seeking the Lord together in this way has definitely strengthened our relationship. Recently we’ve started reading Scripture at night together too before we pray. It’s been a sweet time for us. Just as with our children – if we are faithful to keep our individual relationships with the Lord our first priority, it makes our marriage sweeter and more secure. I love how God works!
Communication is also vital to our growth as one flesh. Whether it be about intimacy, child rearing, paying the bills,… we talk about it all. We try to communicate our hearts without anger or blame, and with a teachable spirit as we seek to learn from each other and the Lord. One of the best practices we’ve ever done in our marriage is to go to one another periodically and ask, “How can I be a better wife (or husband) to you?” and be ready to hear and receive what the other one says.
How do you define "quality of life" for you and your family?
I guess if I were to define quality of life for us, it would be about seeking the joy of growing alongside one another and being sanctified by how the Lord uses all of us to refine each other. It’s about seeking to see the world through His lens and desiring to be an instrument for His glory to make a difference in the lives of others. To live in such a way that others see Jesus reflected in us so that they want to know Him more.
Quality of life is often determined by reaching a certain financial goal, or social status. Finding joy in the connections you have, business success, owning or being all the right things. We serve in full time ministry and live on raised support. We hardly ever eat out, shop mostly at consignment stores, drive cars with more than 100,000 miles on them, and will likely never take a typical family vacation but we are rich beyond measure and lack for nothing. And though we are a normal family with trials and bumps and squabbles at times, we have a peaceful, joyful, blessed life!
What are your favorite all-family activities?
We love to read together, to cuddle up in our livingroom and watch movies, to go to the ocean (or now to Lake Michigan), play board games, and go on picnics.
How often do you get alone time as a busy mom of 6? What is your take on "alone time"?
I think alone time is vital to every person – especially moms! As moms we are constantly pouring out into the lives of others and if we are drained ourselves, we cannot minister effectively to the ones God has placed in our care. Having said that, I’m bad at finding it! My time alone with the Lord each morning really is the one thing that keeps me sane! But I also believe that we need to do other things to refuel ourselves too. Someone asked me recently what refreshed me. I don’t know that I’d ever been asked that before and had to ponder it a bit. After some thinking, I realized that taking a few minutes alone to even just walk around our yard to enjoy the quiet or a drive by myself is so helpful for me to catch my breath and refocus. Sometimes 10 minutes is all I need! The other thing that refreshes me is to encourage other women – particularly moms. I’m so excited when I get the opportunity to pray with another mom or just listen to her heart and offer encouragement. Or just hang out with someone at the same stage of life and laugh and share. I think every mom needs to figure out what refreshes them – because it looks different for each of us – and seek to make it a priority on a regular basis.
What does your devotional time look like as a homeschooling mom?
My devotional time looks different depending on where I feel the Lord is calling me to be in His Word. The constants are that I am always in His Word and it's daily – though devotional books are nice and I do use them, they are in addition to actual Bible reading. I’ve read through the Bible several times. At one point I felt the need to saturate myself in His Word and read through the Bible in nine months. Other times, I’ve read the same book (usually a smaller book like James or one of Paul’s other letters) every day for 3 or more months. I ask the Lord to show me something fresh from His Word as I read that book for the 60th or 70th time. And He does! I love how alive it is!
Right now, I’m walking through Psalms and journaling about 5 characteristics of God each day and meditating on them. I enjoy praying them back to Him - “Thank you, Lord, that you are my refuge! Thank you, Lord, that your love is steadfast!...” I’ve also been revisiting the Gospels and it’s been cool to be walking through the Psalms that way at the same time I’m reading the life of Christ. I’m in John right now.
The key to my devotional time is that I am now an early riser. That is not natural for me! Because our little ones are up at 7 am, my aim is to be up by 5 am so that I can have that quiet time with Him before our house is awake. It’s more like 5:30 lately! I’m still nursing our youngest, so with that first feeding falling during time, I usually get about an hour of focused time to read and to pray. I have an extensive prayer list, so my time is pretty evenly divided between praying and reading. My greatest regret is that I wasn’t disciplined to do this earlier in my life. I’ve been consistent for the last seven years, but I wasted so many years not seeking Him diligently!