Because once upon a time I thought I’d rather eat glass than have kids

I feel like I have been on a pilgrimage from there to here.

Here being two days after Christmas two years ago. The afternoon that kid number two came out into the world. Out. From inside of me.

There being nearly two decades ago.

While “pilgrimage” might conjure up images of slow and deliberate journeying toward a goal, mine has been a grim and angry scramble away from one. Backwards.

Backwards away from a church culture that told me I was nothing apart from the babies I could produce.

Backwards away from the limits other people wanted to put on my worth.

Backwards away from pregnancy and the hundred horror stories other mothers had shared in morbid delight with my frightened imagination.

With my own mom in the hospice, there was no one to rock and comfort and reassure me – that the teenage boys in Sunday school weren’t to be believed with their taunts of “barefoot and pregnant.” That the med student who over-shared about his first delivery experience and how labor nearly cost the mother her life wasn’t the rule. And that the God of it all was not, in fact, out to get me because I was a woman.

But I didn’t have the words to express this all to her. And she didn’t have the ability to answer.

That year I would lose both my mother and the joy of my womanhood.

Three months before Christmas.

It took many years and a big, black man named Chuck to help give it back to me.

We’d never met when he leaned over after church one day and said, “I don’t know you, but I think God wants me to tell you that He doesn’t care if you have children or not.”

[Heartbeat]

“He wants you to know He loves you for you.”

[Breathe]

“For you, and not for the children you may or may not have one day.”

[Tears]

“And you,” turning to Pete, “If you marry her it has to be for her and not for what she can give you.”

[Relief]

Because he did. And for the next five years he and the Heavenly Father mothered me in profoundly comforting ways. They rebuilt my heart and showed me the beauty of what we could make together.

When I caught the vision it was so great, we made two. One in South Africa and one in the States. And when Micah arrived on a snowy Michigan night it was anything but silent.

I had been anticipating his arrival for months. On Christmas Eve my massive belly got in the way of my firstborn who wanted to sit on my lap and gaze at the lights. We soaked in the service and the music and the words. The holy, redemptive words. The truth that had been stolen from me:

The Savior was born from a woman. Because of a woman. For a woman.

“Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son.” Luke 1:30-31.

“In his name the nations will put their hope.” Matthew 12:21.

Two days later I would follow the same hard path of labor that Mary walked. I would feel the same contractions and ache for the same relief. I would know that great love comes with great sacrifice. And when they placed him on my breast, I would know how she felt.

Fulfilled. Exhausted and exhilarated. Redeemed.

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This post is dedicated to Mallory, who took the beautiful pictures and shares a love for talking motherhood.