mid-life crisis

A year ago I quit my job of five years as a high school English teacher in order to pursue something that I loved. The crazy part is that I had no idea what I loved. I just knew that teaching English was no longer something I felt passionate about. At the time my life was pretty crappy around the edges: Chaz and I were experiencing our first marriage strains and a chronic illness was keeping me from getting pregnant. I prayed for quite a long time about it, and in my heart I knew that moving on was exactly what God wanted me to do. It felt crazy, like jumping from a cliff with no parachute. I had no plans for a job and no true interests in a new career. I just knew I had to move. I remember being on my knees in my bathroom promising the Lord that I would trust him as I moved forward with no plans. Terror and peace fought for control daily. 

One year later I sit at my computer typing as my two-month-old daughter sleeps in her infant seat beside me. The hope of becoming a mother was always in the heart of those prayers a year ago, hoping that God was telling me to move because part of his plans for me included motherhood. I have exactly what I wanted. I look at my daughter and I feel an overwhelming sense of love, but the thing I thought I'd feel--completeness--isn't there. I know by now that the sense of always chasing something, always wanting more is part of our humanly "flesh" nature and that once we achieve that goal or get that thing we want we enjoy it for a time and then quickly move on to the next want. But right now the existentialism is overwhelming. The dreaded and overused "Who am I?" is pounding at my front door each time I open my eyes in the morning. Yes, I am a child of God. Yes, I am a new creation in Christ. 

But why in the world can't he just give me a straightforward job description?!

Nobody told me that this disconnection from self and God came along with becoming a parent. Or is it just me? I'd like to wallow in self-pity and dissolution and whine about my lack of motivation and ask God why he won't fix me. But I know that any passion that's worthwhile is the passion for Christ and his word and his work. You don't get to be existential when you know God's word. In his classic devotional My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers writes, "If we continually try to bring back those exceptional moments of inspiration, it is a sign that it is not God we want. We are becoming obsessed with the moments when God did come and speak with us, and we are insisting that He do it again. But what God wants us to do is to 'walk by faith'."

In all honesty, I didn't know the answer when I began writing this post. But God reminded me. Just like anything that's worthwhile--marriage, parenthood, a good book--lapses in excitement and questions of "Do I want to keep on?" come from time to time. I feel that it's also part of the Christian walk. With all the books and sermons on the topic of passion I assume it's a given. What it comes down to is always the same. Trust. On that bathroom floor a year ago, I told God I would trust him. I know I can trust him still--to spark passion for him again, to spark a passion for something in life with which he has gifted me. To exchange "Who am I?" for "I trust you." 

eleven years

I've been a mother for just over six weeks, and in those six weeks I've experienced an upheaval of emotions that I had not expected. We, my husband and I, received all of the well-intentioned "advice" from friends and strangers: "You're life will never be the same," "Don't worry, it'll get better," and our favorite, "Get plenty of sleep while you can!" While that last phrase truly has no merit as I was suffering from heartburn and hot flashes at the end of my pregnancy, the other two always made me think. I wondered just what each person meant when they said it. What point of view, what experiences had flavored that hackneyed phrase? Looking back, I wish that I had interviewed each person who spoke one of those phrases to me and found out exactly what it meant to them. But would anyone really want to tell me...

These past six weeks have been the most challenging of my life. The physical pain and recovery from childbirth coupled with the surges and drops in hormones and the broken moments of both fear of failure and being incompetent and the overwhelming joy of this new life make a person almost crazy. By the end of two weeks I didn't recognize myself. But as with all things time and routine heal, and my daughter, Savannah, and myself began to form a relationship without words. Touching, looking, and intuition are languages that I am just now beginning to truly explore. My daughter has provided a spring of life that I could not have anticipated. 

I think the things they don't tell you are somewhat inexpressible, and that is why this journey of parenthood is so varied and rich. I began writing this inaugural post yesterday, the eleven-year anniversary of my mom's passing. Each year the dull ache becomes fainter, even on holidays like Christmas (usually my worst) and Mother's Day. But this year is different. This year I can finally begin to experience what my mother deemed her greatest joy. She only got seventeen years to be a mom. She was not a cut-out-of-a-magazine mom, but her life and death made me who I am. She taught me many things and a lot of what not to do, but mostly she taught me how to love. Without holding back. I've only truly been able to express that kind of love within the past few years and I'm still learning and stretching. The hardest thing, the thing nobody can tell you, is how hard you fall when you look at your own child. As I rocked Savannah she gazed up at me with the oxytocin-induced lull of sleep and I smiled at the ease of her life and whispered and thank-you in her ear. Thank you for allowing me to be a mother. Thank you to my Lord who gives and takes mercifully, omnisciently, and who will not let me make a mistake without being by my side. Thank you, thank you that in these eleven years I have not crumbled under the weight of loss nor barricaded myself against love and light. Thank you, my God, for making all things new.