Learning Unexpected Lessons

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.”