Believe
it or not, I didn’t grow up with career aspirations. I soaked in the perceived
philosophies that floated in the conservative, Christian, homeschooling
communities in which I was raised. I don’t know whether some of the adults I
knew really felt condemning of career women, whether they were reacting to
common cultural barbs thrown at stay-at-home moms, whether they felt superior
in their choices to stay home and homeschool, or whether they were humbly
discussing the reasons they’d made the choices they’d made. I wish I knew, but
children don’t always pick up on those nuances. All I knew was that it was good
for women to be homemakers, to be wives, to raise children. I longed for that
life with all of the longing my young, limited perspective could muster.
The
years ticked by. I turned eighteen, eager to learn the lessons of marriage and
motherhood. “The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world,”
I dreamed. The years continued to tick by. Aside from a ridiculous fling with a
scoundrel when I was twenty-one, there was no indication that I was going to be
given the opportunity to “fulfill God’s purpose for wives and husbands.” I went
to college. Four years went by. Still single at twenty-six, I applied to
graduate programs. I started graduate school on my twenty-seventh birthday,
amid protestations that it was time for me to find a husband and settle down.
It wasn’t until the December after I turned twenty-nine that I met the man I
would marry. I had stopped looking for him long before. He just… showed up.
As
a young teenager, I had a picture in my mind of what a godly woman’s life would
look like. There was a single path with specific, individual choices. When
those choices were not the ones that were presented to me, it required a
paradigm shift. I had mistakenly equated my desire for the path of marriage and
motherhood with a desire for God. Over the course of many years, I learned to
replace my [good] dream of learning the godly lessons that marriage would teach
with the better one of learning the godly lessons that would make me like
Christ, regardless of my relationship status. Ever so slowly, so painfully, God
replaced my desire to serve Him by serving a husband and children with a desire
to serve him for Himself. I didn’t sign up to learn graceful loneliness, joy in
the midst of deafening silence, or peace in the cacophony of my solitary mind,
but I learned anyway. I wanted, in the innocence of childhood, to serve God as
a helpmeet. I learned, in the starts and stops of adult life, to serve God in
any role.
When
I did get married, the lessons of marriage were expected. While difficult, they
are joyful because they are lessons I willingly, knowingly signed up for. I
also think that the years God spent shifting my paradigm about singleness have
contributed something valuable to the way I approach the lessons of marriage.
I
didn’t forget the lessons of singlehood, but when we started trying to conceive
a child, I foolishly thought I was signing up for the lessons of motherhood. I
thought I was signing up for lessons about sacrificing for someone who is
completely reliant on you. I thought I was signing up for lessons about setting
a good example. I thought I was signing up for lessons about the unconditional
love for a child. I thought I was signing up for cheerfully enduring the
physical discomforts of pregnancy. Once again, God is teaching me lessons I
didn’t sign up for. Once again, my paradigm is painfully shifting. Once again,
I’m left only with trusting desperately that He knows what He’s doing.
Yesterday marked two months since I said “goodbye” to my first baby. Instead of
learning how to cope with a changing body, I’m learning how to be content with
one that is stubbornly the same. Instead of dealing with the hormonally-induced
emotions of pregnancy, I’m learning to be patient with the unpredictable
returns of the heart-crushing sorrow of loss. Instead of learning how to share experiences
with other pregnant women, I am learning how to genuinely congratulate them
when I see the ultrasound pictures that look so much like the ones I should be seeing of my baby right now. These
are not the lessons I thought I would be learning, but they are the lessons I needed to learn. I
thought I had learned during the years of singleness how to wait for something
that may never happen, but I realize now that I hadn’t learned the lesson as
thoroughly as I thought.
It’s
painful when God replaces a good paradigm with a deeper one. It’s painful to
sacrifice carefully, faithfully crafted dreams on the altar of total surrender.
Just like God eventually allowed me to learn the lessons of marriage, He may
eventually allow me to learn the lessons of motherhood. But, just like He asked
me to sacrifice the dream of marriage for a time to learn the lessons of
singleness, He’s asking me right now to sacrifice the dream of motherhood to
learn the lessons of loss. These are not the lessons I signed up for, but they’re
the lessons I’m learning. Sometimes, I’m kicking and screaming. Other times, I’m
willing. Today, I’m vacillating between the two extremes. Thankfully, I know
that He is faithful to “complete the work He began in me.”
