I recently realized it is silly of me to think this process of becoming a mother happens in recognizable phases. It is a process that began long before I was a physical mother and will surely continue way beyond my childbearing years. Of course, there will be a lot I’m continuing to learn but much will be an ever deepening of what I’ve already been pondering and how God has always been molding my heart.
So, I’m changing the title of this series (if you want to call it that) up a bit, recognizing that each of these reflections is a window into this process of becoming that will never be complete, at least not on this side of Heaven.
With that, I wanted to reflect on an experience I had in 2019. It was my first year as a Christ in the City missionary and the first time I ever considered that God had made me with a mother’s heart. Not just in theory or potentially but actually.
That summer, our community was split into teams and assigned to different cities to lead “Summer of Service” mission trips. We would be leading a group of college students to experience our mission for three weeks. We coordinated with the diocese of the city we’d be going to and planned the intellectual, spiritual, human, and apostolic formation that would occur during that brief window of time. My team went to Los Angeles, and I was the “team lead”.
To put it briefly, those three weeks blindsided me with the truth God was calling me to be a mother. Not just one day in the future but right then. I was genuinely shocked. The three weeks were overwhelming for many reasons, and every day I prayed for the grace to be attentive to the present moment and tried hard to surrender my worries to Him. What I found there was an invitation to let go of the management of details and expectations of a perfectly executed schedule and instead to lean into the presence of the people I was with and remain attentive to what God was doing with all of us. Reflecting on it now, I realize how much this is still the invitation in my life. It was not easy then and remains difficult, but it has always been a worthwhile challenge.
Two of the most striking memories I have from that summer mission trip were moments where I could do nothing more than offer my presence in a way that was particular to me and my womanhood.
In one instance, a summer missionary was blindsided by the content of one of the early trainings we attended. She ran outside, and I followed her soon after. She didn’t really talk about what was bothering her, but she let me sit with her. She was the one who gave me the title of “Mama Bear” that was used throughout the three weeks. This stunned me. I found it endearing but also humbling. Who was I to be considered a mother? I had not rightfully earned such a thing.
This was the other instance with a different missionary. At the time, I was honored that she came to me while also feeling inadequate knowing there was not much I could seemingly do to help her. I wrote about it several months later, intrigued by the invitation to just be with her, to trust my intuition, and to surrender the rest.
She knocks on my door, and she is breathing quickly. I know these breaths.
I see her chest rising and falling rapidly, the air coming into her mouth through her lips sharply. She has a rash and now can’t breathe and she doesn’t know if it is anxiety…or if something else is wrong.
I look at her, helpless inside, but reassure her to breathe deeply. She takes long deep breaths as tears drip from her eyes, and I know she is scared.
She is in pain and uncomfortable, but for now, in this moment, she is okay. Tomorrow we will see. If things are not better, you can go to a doctor, someone will take you. Don’t worry.
I don’t know for sure if this is true. I don’t know what is going on because I am not a doctor. But I have to trust because there is nothing else right now that I can do.
I tell her that she is welcome to wake me up whenever she needs to in the middle of the night, and I will be with her. And I let her walk back to her room, and we are both left unsure, but Lord, I know the only thing I can do is offer her completely to you.
I realize, Lord, that you are teaching me about motherhood.
Reading it again today, several years later with my own child napping upstairs, I am amazed. I recognize even more now how much this experience mirrored motherhood and realize how I, in all my particular gifts, strengths, and weaknesses, was created to receive another person. As Edith Stein wrote, “The woman's soul is fashioned as a shelter in which other souls may unfold.” This was so poignantly revealed to me in those three weeks.
What was torturous at the time, I now find simultaneously hilarious and sweetly sincere. I was constantly and intensely worried I was not doing God’s will and that I would not be able to identify His will for my life. What I know now is that He was and is always at work, forming my heart quite simply to love. That is His will!! The how to love is what evolves, shifts, and deepens. As I mature in my faith and deepen in my identity as a woman, I notice how intricately motherhood and womanhood are intertwined and that my call to love as a mother is not relegated to physical motherhood. Rather, it expands into the ways I encounter every person placed before me. This essential element of my identity existed before I ever was married or became pregnant and is only growing as this process of matrescence continues.
If you also subscribe to my family newsletter, you’ll see some duplicates here ;)
This is SO fun and beautiful. Plus, it made me smile.
A poem by Luci Shaw that stopped me in my tracks. The first stanza is jarring and yet it makes the last line of the second stanza piercing. I realized recently that John 21 is probably one of my favorite chapters of the Gospels.
Sarah Carter’s Unmade by Grace. This floored me! It is concise and potent.
Annelise Roberts’ Growing pains. I love Annelise’s vulnerability in writing and the wisdom I feel like I get to receive from her as I am a new mom and she is more seasoned. This essay was convicting.
“I think many mothers act as if they are the owner-operators of their family domain. In so many ways it's easier to just know all the things, have the task list in your head, not have to communicate what needs to be done, and take care of it yourself.”
Sarah W Rowell’s Interruptions, Imperfections. I was moved by the way she wrote about the growth that happens in a marriage. It’s true. I surely would not want day one of marriage to have been the best day of my life!
“On all your normal Saturdays, you will need to know this gift of an imperfect and humorous life. You will need to be strong enough to weather interruptions and human frailty and gracious enough to admit, even in your best moments, that you are but men at best, achingly normal, and in need of someone who will swear not to forsake you and place a cup of coffee in your shaking hand every morning until death parts you.”
Lastly, I read my own essay again and was struck by how much the Holy Spirit was working there. If you’re new here, feel free to check it out. I think it is one of my favorite things I have written.