Thursday, June 1, 2017

How Revelation 21:5 Made Me Feel Like a Mother

Only 7 hours.  Just 7 short hours, starting with my water breaking.  We calmly collected our things and got in the car, and as we sat at a red light, the only ones at the intersection at 10PM, I stared straight ahead and said determinedly, "We're not coming home without a baby."  7 hours, and the uncertainty was over, and I became a mom.

No one warned me about the baby blues, and I spent the first two weeks of motherhood crying my eyes out-- not just crying, but sobbing hysterically as the sun went down, crying so hard I was unable to speak, clutching my new baby in anxiety and panic and helplessness and emotions I had never experienced before.  I watched as his weight dropped-- and dropped some more-- and concern gave way to true fear, and I was so certain that no one in the history of motherhood had ever made more mistakes or gotten more wrong than I already had.

And even after the worst was over and everything leveled out and I finally found that I could breathe again, I still felt wrong.  Instead of feeling like I had gained something incredible, I felt like I had lost something invaluable: my sense of self.  I hadn't felt like myself for the majority of my pregnancy-- constantly sick, barely able to eat, exhausted, etc.-- and towards the end of my pregnancy, I journaled: "I don't look or feel like myself.  Too-short hair, too-big stomach, angry red stretch marks, filled-out face, no rings... I look in the mirror, and I don't see myself.  I wake up, and I don't feel like Erica."

It took a while to understand that I was fighting against something that could not be regained.  That old self could not exist separately from the new self that had been born with my son.  I could not have two separate identities.  I had to let go of what my life used to be and embrace the newness with all its challenges and difficulties-- and joys-- instead of trying to hold onto my old self.  It took me a long time to realize that, and then a while to accept it, but it was a pivotal moment in my understanding of motherhood.  I had to learn that it wasn't a bad thing.  It was a paradigm shift, and it was difficult, but it wasn't bad.

It was a line from a song that we sing on TEC retreats that really turned everything around for me.  The song lyric comes from a Bible verse, Revelation 21:5:  "And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See, I am making all things new.'"

 I had been singing that song over and over to Benjamin for days, and that line just stuck.  And it finally clicked.  My God was making me brand new in motherhood.  I could not be the same as I was.  Fighting it-- even if I hadn't realized that's what I'd been doing-- was only hurting me.

I understand now that the difference was phenomenal, on an entirely different level than anything I had ever experienced.  Of course it took me some time to get used to it.  I have been transformed in love.  Motherhood had completely broken me, but the miracle is that it has reassembled me in a brand new and better way.  Every so often I feel a sense of mourning for my old life or the way things were, but I wouldn't trade this for that even if I could.  Not a chance.  I never knew I had this immense capacity for love.  I never knew I was capable of this much quiet patience.  I am, I think, an overall better version of myself, even on the hardest days.




I feel like kintsugi: the Japanese practice of repairing broken pottery with gold so that it's more beautiful because it has been broken.  I didn't even believe that it was a thing at first.  I thought it was just a pretty photoshopped picture that Facebook liked to pass around, poetic but fake.  But it's real.  Things really can become more beautiful for their brokenness and change.  I, who fear change so desperately, have finally found it beautiful.  Difficult, but beautiful.

It's been like walking slowly in total darkness, sliding one foot in front of the other, scared to bump into something and fall.  At first, I was all but blind.  Then there was a dimness, and I could start to make out blurry edges, and with each passing week, my surroundings grow every brighter.  My sight grows ever clearer.  I keep walking forward in faith that the light will soon illuminate everything fully, and I will finally be able to see again.

Even during the longest nights, when "sleep when the baby sleeps" becomes "cry when the baby cries," I move forward in love.  This is the motherhood that I longed for, even though I didn't know what it really was when I dreamt of it.  How could I?  This new kind of love is outstanding.  I'm amazed by my child's very existence and the blessing and lesson he is in my life.  This is what I waited for and what I will do for the rest of my life, this kind of love.