What Am I Now?

I Was a Mommy for Years.  What Am I Now?

Day before yesterday, my center (not allowed to call her middle) sister forwarded me four sonograms of her soon-promised grandson.  About the same time, my nephew texted me, “It’s a boy!”  As I smiled to myself and prayed for this precious, as yet unborn, little boy, I asked God to give his parents a great love for God the Father to exemplify and teach their son what it means to love and be loved by a Heavenly Father.  I thought through the joys to come, the sorrows to bear, the sense of responsibility to weigh, and the inescapable pride as God shapes them into so much more than our feeble efforts could ever accomplish.

For centuries, women have defined themselves by relationships:  wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, professional employee through work, or keeper of the home extraordinaire, replete with all of the current got-to haves.  Yet, the mother and child relationship is the one which defies the understanding of anyone – including Freud – no, especially Freud.

We, as mothers, carry that child, as part of bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh for nine months – though, somehow, in the past ten years, gestation is now ten months or forty weeks.  How did that happen and we women missed it?  Who developed a new math?  Why did they do that?  What shot do they have of getting the exact day of conception right, anyway?  Where do we get off “scheduling” the optimum arrival time for convenience so that one child’s birthday doesn’t just happen to fall on the same day as another’s?  We schedule the time, date, and location of convenience.  We know the sex of the child.  We know when we go into the hospital and on what date we’ll be out.  Daddy sleeps in the “birth suite” with Mommy and child, rather than bonding with the kids at home.  How did all of that come about?  Ah, well, enough musings of an older woman about the changes surrounding the arrival of babies.  If you are an adoptive mom, as am I, then you have waited so long for that child which is finally placed in your hands that you allow no one else to hold it, baby sit, feed it, or, in my case, even change a diaper.  I had waited five years for that honor. 

Then, one day, they go to college.  I can still remember the hole in my heart as first, our oldest went away to a college in southern Georgia, and only two years later, our youngest left for school in Tennessee.  My heart ached, physically, as the house echoed with emptiness.  At no other time did I see the differences in dads and moms so powerfully demonstrated.  I would walk through the house weeping, He’s gone, he’s gone.  My husband would walk through saying, Yes, they’re gone!  They’re really gone! 

I struggled with the subtle changes.  I would set too many places at the table.  I would pick up their favorite foods on an aisle at the grocery store.  By the way, did you know that foods have expiration dates?  I didn’t.  Nothing around here ever lasted long enough to expire with two sons and their friends in and out.  I found that I couldn’t go to sleep at night because I had trained myself to listen for the sound of their car turning into our subdivision.  It didn’t turn in anymore.  Finally, I found out that the teenager next door had to be home by midnight, so I started listening for his car.  I would fall asleep after he got home.

One night, I found myself grieving deeply over missing our boys.  I did the only thing I ever know to do in the middle of the night.  I have found that my husband can sleep through almost anything – well, actually, anything, if I will leave him alone.  So, since he wasn’t talking, I went to God’s Word, where I found some powerful truths of comfort.  I just began reading in the Psalms and came upon Psalms 3:3-5:  But, you, O Lord, are a shield for me; my glory, and the One Who lifts my head up from off of my chest in discouragement…  I laid myself down and slept; I awakened; for the Lord sustained me.  Next, He took me to Psalm 4:8:  I will both lay myself down in peace, and sleep; for you, Lord, ONLY make me dwell in safety.  However, the real kicker came in Psalm 127:2:  It is vain (useless) for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows:  so He gives His beloved sleep.  As powerfully as that verse struck me about the futility of finding my peace in my controlling my children, their environment, and their behavior, the verse which explained it all was the next verse, Psalm 127:3:  Lo (listen), children are an heritage of the Lord…

Suddenly, I understood.  They really were not my children.  They were the Lord’s, and I had been privileged to be used to impact their lives for Him.  This whole mothering thing was much bigger than my pleasures at parenting.  It was about eternity.  You see, being a parent is the only job that, if we do it right, they leave.  Now, in the early years, they are, indeed, attached to a large bungee cord, and they come flying back through the house at unexpected times, usually with one or two people under their arms, needing food, money, or clean clothes.  Nontheless, when we have done our job as unto the Lord, we have equipped His child, to the best of our feeble abilities, to step out into this world and to have an impact on others around them for eternity’s sake.  You will always be their mother; you have a limited time to mother them. 

So, mom-to-be, don’t hold on too tight to that little one for too long.  God may want him or her to be a missionary in a foreign country.  Moms, don’t force those little ones into dance, sports, gymnastics, and pageants.  God may want them in powerful government positions to lead nations to be godly and righteous.  Empty nest moms, don’t fear because you can’t go with your children as they grow up and away; you can sleep because God doesn’t.  You can rest because God doesn’t.  You aren’t always there, but God is.  Remember, children are the heritage of the Lord.  Savor every moment you have influencing them for Jesus. 

© 2010 Gerry Sisk

(10/27/10)