The Refining Fires of Motherhood

Motherhood has completely taken me out of my comfort zone. I think God designed it to--as part of the sanctifying nature of parenting and family life that rips us out of our cozy armchairs of selfishness.

It all started when I got pregnant on our honeymoon and had to start seeing an obstetrician (If I'd known better back then, I would have looked for a midwife!). Suddenly painfully shy and modest old me faced pelvic exams, poking, prodding, and the prospect of a male doctor and who knows how many other medical personel gazing with (professional) interest at pieces of me that I'd sought all my life to cover up! Oh my!

Then, when the baby was born, for the first time in my life I could not get more than a few hours of sleep at a time. And he was like no baby I'd ever held before. Whereas when I was not a mother, I could hold and coddle and quiet just about any baby with no trouble, my own baby--the one that I grew in my very own body--seemed to want nothing to do with sleep and quiet. He was a colicky screamer. I fell apart completely. Frightened my family, made my husband worry that he'd made a mistake picking me. I shattered into a million pieces.

God put me back together again.

As the second baby was born and my boys started to grow, there was another area in which God used them to knock out selfishness. For a long time, I wanted to control everything. If I could just keep the floors clean, if I could just keep sticky jam off the table, peanut butter out of thier hair. If I could only get them to nap at the same time, every day, and sleep 8 hours at night. If I could keep the boys out of the mud after a full day of rain, and keep them quiet and happy inside (I know, I know, impossible!).

If I could only do these things, my life would have some semblance of order and I'd be OK. But I had to recognize that if I wanted a pristine house and rigid schedule, I should never have married, let alone had children. And I don't just have children. I have two boys. Testosterone abounds, and therefore, so does mess and noise. They even sleep noisily--my little lawnmowers rustling around all night in bed.

I broke again, but this time, it was quicker, less painful, and I don't think anybody knew about it. And God put me back together once again.

The other day I let the boys out to wallow in the mud. They were so happy! And I thought of all the times I tried to control things and caused all of us misery. Mud can be washed off. Dirt can be swept up off the floor. Jam and peanut butter are water soluable. I have a washing machine. And lots of soap. I can now (with only a few moments of cringing) let my 3 yo make his very own pizza.

The mess of oil and cheese and tomato and veggies doesn't compare to the delight on his face as he squashes the dough in the pan, watches anxiously as it rises and bakes, artisticly arranges the toppings, watches anxiously again through the second baking, and then runs to his Baba and says with such pride "Look!! I made pizza! All by myself!". And what's 10 minutes to bathe and a pile of dirty clothes in comparison to the grinning, mud-streaked faces of two little boys playing 'farmer' in the tiny back yard of our little urban 'homestead'?

In all the breaking and putting back together, I have come out a better and more blessed person. I suppose the Biblical picture would be the refinement of gold. I know I'm a long way from perfection, and I have decades yet to go in the refining fires of parenthood. I know there will be more pain, more selfishness knocked out of me, more comfort zones destroyed.

But it's so worth it. The mess, the noise, the pain, the destruction of all my carefully laid plans.

This morning after I fed Gebreyesus, I had trouble putting him back in his bed. I just wanted to hold him. Cuddle him. Soak in the sweetness. I finally laid him down and turned to Asrat, who had kicked off all his blankets. As I tucked him back in, he said, ever so politely and in the sweetest voice, "Thank you Mama!". He was asleep, so I must have entered his dreams.

Mothering is worth it all.