Hope in Mommy Guilt

My first daughter came completely unexpectedly....  

When my husband and I discovered we were expecting it wasn't exactly planned, but we were excited.  Then reality hit.... nothing about what followed was normal!

Throughout my entire pregnancy I struggled with high blood pressure, stress, isolation and now as I look back on it, even depression.  

What I had been led to believe was one of the most amazing experiences in a woman's life, becoming a mother, is a period full of mixed emotions for me even four years later.  

Don't get me wrong, I love being Mommy to my two little world changers.  However, no matter how many articles, books and podcasts you devour on the topics of parenting and motherhood, I am not sure that anything prepares you for "Mommy guilt".  Mine started before my due date.

I was admitted to the hospital early in my third trimester and Myka was born nearly 2 months early.  

Enter Mommy guilt....  While in the moment I was thankful that she was alive and doing well even if that meant she was in the ICU, it didn't take long for Mommy guilt to hit.  As we were separated by the length of a hall and the restrictions of NICU for her and bedrest for me the realities of "I couldn't carry her full term", "I'd have to leave her at the hospital while I went home", "I can only visit once or twice a day" began to hit me.  

While our determined little girl, who was born with a check-list, made getting home to Mommy and Daddy a high priority and that phase of Mommy guilt was short lived, it was the introduction of a shadow self into my world of Motherhood.

Your story might not include C-sections, NICU and preemies, but each of us, who answer to the name "Mommy" know the feeling of guilt that we are not enough.  We can't get the ducks of our life in the same pond let alone in a row!  And we are being asked to care for these little humans?!

Somehow over the years, decades and centuries that mothers have existed we have created incredible and often unattainable standards for motherhood.  I have looked for it.  Nowhere in Scripture can I find that we as mothers are required to give our children 5 hugs, 3 books and a special song before they can go to bed (see Boss Baby for context).  As mothers we can believe that the traditions we start with one child are necessary when children 2, 3, 4 and 5 come along.  It's just not true!

I have been learning as a mom myself that we create complex rituals and routines for ourselves.  These become the ways that we assuage our guilt in the periods we need to care for ourselves.  

So my Mommy guilt story doesn't end with my oldest finally making it home.  My Mommy guilt story picks up again over the past few months.  In January, I finished my bachelors degree.  I am now in that fun phase of "between jobs".  Enter Mommy guilt.... My daughters go to daycare during the week.  I struggle with this every time someone asks me if I am a "stay at home mom".  I feel the guilt and shame hit me full force when I am asked about what I do and then am I a stay at home mom.  The simple answer is "Nope.  I am a new grad looking for a job".  So why do I feel less than enough?  

When did we decide that it was an ideal for mothers to stay at home?  Now don't get me wrong I have friends who are stay at home moms and they are amazing!  They take their kids on play dates, go check out all the cool things going on around town and have all the cute little Pinterest projects they do at home (my kids on the other hand think Pinterest is a cookbook!).  On the other hand though... I have friends who help others heal in their roles as Physical Therapist, Occupational Therapist and Nurse.  I have friends who are mothers that run their own business.  All of us are called to something different, even if we are mothers.  Our roles all look a little different.

A friend recently loaned me a book that reminded me exactly why my husband and I have chosen to keep our girls at their daycare.  The most powerful gift I, as a mother, can give my children is relieving them of the responsibility of being the center of our family.  I have two toddlers and they are both full of massive emotions!  These little tykes do not even have the ability to control their anger without guidance and yet so often we saddle them with the role of nucleus of the family.

The same idea goes for Mommy's though... One of the greatest gifts we can give our families is to not make ourselves the nucleus of their world.  None of us were made to be the center of the world.  Think about it.... In science class we learn about the center of the earth being hot.  Some sources estimate it around 6100 degrees Celsius.  So if we as moms make ourselves the center of family life... well... we make ourselves a hot mess, literally!

Over my life I have had a love-hate relationship with what we in faith circles infamously call "the Proverbs 31 woman".  She has been elevated to an ideal.  So much so that I have noticed it is not uncommon for men to think they need to "free" women from this burden.  Rather than freeing us from it I think we really need to take a closer look at her.  This woman was amazing!  Not in the way that we typically think of her as slaving over her family, providing for their every need.  She was amazing because she is our first model of what a passionate woman looks like.  

She was the first feminist... (vs 15) She provided for her female servants!

She was a servant leader (again vs 15)... She provided for her female servants!

She had her husband's confidence in a culture where women were inferior to men (vs 11).

She is a business woman, buying land and planting vineyards.

And I can't help, but think when I read that "her lamp does not go out at night", she networks and has others working when she is asleep!

So she is a business woman and has female servants... I think we tend to place ourselves in the context of this woman and her place in history while forgetting that we live in a different era.  This woman is very likely taking care of her female servants because they are helping take care of her children...  

When we just look at this woman in Proverbs 31 through the lens of a stay at home mom ideal then we are missing the freedom that she is bringing to us.  In the era during which Proverbs is being written this woman gives hope and inspiration to all of the women who feel inferior and less than enough.  The more I read her story the more I become convinced as a mom that her role was never intended to create an ideal.  It was intended to give hope and freedom to women.  She is in Scripture to remind us that we as mothers do not have to be the nucleus of our families to be loved, respected and honored.  We do not have to show up to life guilt ridden that someone with the gift of relating to and teaching children is spending the day with our children while we live out the gifting God has given us.  

I become more and more convinced that our children need our presence, our boundaries and our example to help them navigate the complexities of life.  They do not need to be the center of our worlds.  Nor do they need us as moms to move ourselves to the center of their worlds for them to thrive.

What I'm reading 

Making the Terrible Twos Terrific

Hope in the Journey

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

~Jeremiah 29:11

This verse found its way into my life the year I graduated high school.  It came in the form of a little picture frame.  I remember thinking at the time it was cute, but what would I ever do with it?  My style at the time was fussy and the more swirls and curls in a design the better.  This little frame was incredibly simple to the point of boring.  It read Journey across the top and contained the verse from Jeremiah across the bottom.  Somehow through numerous moves and multiple rounds of decluttering this little frame held on.  Every time I picked it up to put it in the discard pile it found its way back into the keep pile.  It is probably the only thing that I still have from that day.  

Honestly, while I've considered it a verse that has defined my life for a while, I have a love-hate relationship with it.  Sometimes I really struggle with believing that God really does have plans that include hope and a future.

There are moments my life feels much more like The Waiting Place from Dr Suess's Oh The Places You'll Go...

...for people just waiting.

Waiting for a train to go

or a bus to come or a plane to go

or the mail to come or the rain to go

or the phone to ring or the snow to snow

or waiting around for a Yes or No

or waiting for their hair to grow.

Everyone is just waiting.

When I'm in that waiting pattern, it is hard to believe that there could be some greater plan at work.

The waiting place doesn't "feel" very hopeful.

Then I'm reminded of that little picture frame that now sits in my living room holding a picture of my younger self surrounded by larger picture frames filled with photos of my little family of four.  This little frame holds a reminder in the single word arching across the top "Journey".

Journey

 1.  a traveling from one place to another, usually taking a rather long trip

2.  passage or progress from one stage to another

A journey requires waiting...

As Dr Seuss reminds us it can be...

"waiting for a train to go or a bus to come or a plane to go"

When my husband and I were dating we vacationed with his family in Florida.

His family had a practice of driving overnight only stopping for gas and maybe one breakfast.  

We agreed that we would take this approach...

We have not done this since! 

One of the things we realized about ourselves as a couple on that trip is that for the two of us the journey is what we enjoy.  The destination is great, but there is so much to enjoy between point A and point B.  

That trip we pushed ourselves so hard to get to the destination that when we got there we were irritable, overly tired and we spent a part of our first day there just catching up on sleep!

I'd like to say I totally get and apply the lesson to every area of my life from that point on, but sadly that is not always the case.  

I think it is so easy to get focused on where we feel called, the goal we have set for ourselves or the future and hope we imagine God has planned for us.  In an intense focus on making that destination happen we lose sight of the lessons on the journey.  

Lord of the Rings in probably the most epic example of a journey we have.  It would have been so easy for Tolkien to focus on merely the journey of Sam and Frodo to destroy the ring, but he doesn't focus solely on this one journey.  Instead he winds together the journeys of several characters all crucial to the ending of the story.  There are periods where these characters had to spend their time in "the waiting place" because of the role they were needed to play in the larger picture.  A role that was critical to the "hope and future" of MiddleEarth.  

It can be easy to think of these stories as just that stories, but stories serve to remind us that a journey is more than just a destination.  A journey is an opportunity for discovery.  A journey is organic and ever changing as people and circumstances come and go.  There is a good chance that most of us will not finish our journey with the same people who were there at its start.  Twenty years later I still remember the person who gave me that small picture frame.  I haven't seen them in nearly a decade.  That little frame over time has served as a reminder that God's idea of hope and future doesn't always look like the destination we think we are aiming toward.  On graduation twenty years ago, I had no idea that a few years later I would graduate from nursing school.  When I graduated from nursing school I had no idea that years later I would complete my bachelors degree in a completely different field.  That little frame with that little girl is surrounded by pictures of a husband and daughters I some days thought would never exist!  

All of that still doesn't stop me from trying to rush to the destination on occasion though!  Do you ever have those moments where you feel that the hope and the future God promises are really distant and seem invisible and highly unlikely to ever happen.  I'm completely convinced that the people Jeremiah was writing to in Babylon felt the exact same way!  Sometimes the waiting while all the details line up feels excruciating.  

You know what still happens on occasion to my husband and I when we take a trip?  

Inevitably we get excited and want to push through to the destination.  

It is in that moment we have to decide if we are going to let the eagerness for the destination override the pace of our journey.

That is sort of how life is....

When we are in "the waiting place" we can juggle the bus, train and plane to get out of that space sooner, but what do we lose in the process?  

What opportunities or relationships are sacrificed?

So if you are in a waiting place (like I am right now) take some time,

slow down, meet the people around you.

Stop trying to juggle the schedule to escape and embrace this part of the journey!

2018 One Word - Hope

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD. "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future."

~Jeremiah 29:11

For the past several years I have adopted a Word for the Year.  

2014 - Pieces

2015 - Recklessly Abandoned

2016 - Exhale

2017 Intentional

Quite honestly, most of those years those words have seemed really difficult.  They have become reminders though that words can have more depth and meaning then we ever imagine.  In 2014, leaving a job meant feeling like my life was falling apart.  It meant feelings of loss and abandonment.  It quite literally felt like life as I knew it was falling apart.

The crazy thing about words though is that they create a story.  When the end of 2015 came along I found myself once more leaving a job (which honestly seemed a little reckless), but this time it was with a sense of anticipation.  We were expecting our second child and I was about half way through school.  There was the offer of a volunteer position in the field I was studying and things looked promising.

2016 saw the birth of our second daughter and the releasing of various relationships, expectations and learning how to be a one income family.

As I have reflected on 2017, I find that once more the idea of being intentional has impacted my life in ways that I never expected.  It meant that in a year that held a lot of change my approach to that changed was different.  I wasn't just reacting to everything that was going on around me, I began to learn to slow down and be intentional about how I responded.  Our family as a whole has tried to be more intentional about how we spend our resources.  It has meant saying no to some good things so I could say yes to better things.

As we neared the end of 2017, I began my usual conversation with God.  It seems like every year my monologue with God goes something like this...

"So, God, are we doing a Word again this year?  I'm not really sure I want to.  Last year sort of hurt.  I'm not quite sure I liked the way that word played out.  Could I maybe have a "happier" word if we are going to do this again?"

Inevitably it seems that when I start this questioning, God begins to show me just how much having a word that year changed me.  I never hear that one word the same way.  I have started to think of it a experiential living.  We live our entire lives using words, but do we fully absorb their impact?  We use words to argue our point in a debate.  We use words to build up, but also belittle others.  Even if you chose a word for the year, have you ever asked God to speak that word over your life for an entire year?

This year God indicated earlier that usual what my word for 2018 would be.
Hope.

I'll be honest.... I'm a little nervous about this word.  I have learned over the past few years that there is always more to a word than we see on the surface.  I think of hope as something clean and pure, a light at the end of the tunnel.  I am a little afraid to have that definition challenged.  What if I don't like what I learn about hope this year?  But what if a new understanding of hope changes me?

And in that comes once again the reminder that words can be one dimensional or they can be experiential.  To live a year allowing God to demonstrate the multi-dimensional facets of one single word or phrase is truly life changing.

Hope will change my life this year.
Will I like all of the ways that happens?
Probably not.
But will I have a deeper understanding of that one singular word Hope by the end of 2018?
Most Definitely!

Abandon

 

In architecture, space sculpts the soul of a building, creating places for people to relax and relate.

~Bonnie Gray

I've recently come across an Instagram account called itsabandoned that fascinates me.  It's pictures of places that have been abandoned by humanity.  Some of them are left in such a way you expect to see the former residents walk back in to take up their lives at any moment.  Others there is an almost painful beauty in the abandoned state.  The beauty comes by the space that has been vacated by some unknown force.  I've wondered more than once why this account holds my attention, but every day I find myself looking for the newly captured empty beauty by a random photographer.  

Maybe these photos capture my attention because of what they represent.  Something that was productive, useful and served a purpose, but now is left to the fate of falling into disrepair and loneliness.  Maybe they hold my gaze just a little longer because I feel like them.  Once useful and productive, but now nothing.....   

Maybe I look at them and see the dreams and hopes that existed in myself 2 years ago that now feel impossible to achieve most days.  Maybe I look at them and see the people that walked away from them seeing the upkeep as too much and see the part of myself that others have reacted to as too broken.  

And then I look again and see the beauty in their abandoned state.  They might have been abandoned by those with less vision, but someone came along and was inspired by what was left by the less astute. That gives me hope.  Someone saw these places that were left behind, lost and unappreciated by those who found their definition of beauty in the newer and flashier locale and redeemed their abandoned state by recognizing the beauty of their existence.  That gives me hope.  Hope that the parts of me that seem too broken for some do have a purpose and beauty.  It reminds me as God reminded Samuel that while man looks on the outward appearance and measures me with his finite knowledge.  God looks at my heart.  God looking at the heart is how David failed so many times by man's evaluation, but God saw in David a man after His own heart.  

My husband likes to talk about embodied energy when talking about the advantage of using an existing building.  I think I look at these pictures of abandoned places and I'm reminded that when God looks at me He sees embodied energy.  He sees what He's already invested in growing me, in the dreams He's given me and in the plans He has for me and once more I find hope.  Hope that much like these rejected places that have been captured in pictures for every time I'm rejected God has someone waiting to recognize what I can be and to join me in that journey.  

The interesting thing about abandoned things....  while some choose to abandon them it creates space and movement for the few that choose to appreciate them.  There is a certain freedom that comes with living in abandonment.  Freedom to discern what's most important and what's least important.  Freedom to say no, but also freedom to say yes.  Freedom not to be defined by the abandoned state, but to live with abandon.