Engaging God

Hello friends!

I'm planning to update this blog more frequently again after a break, whohoo! Some slight changes though...I feel like God has been hard at work on me the last year or so, and those things need to be shared, so I'm planning more of a mix of mommy adventures and some musings on what He's done in my life.

This came to a head last May when a friend of mine in my MOPS group asked me to share my "testimony" (religious speak for how God has worked in my life) with the other moms. That forced me to perform a spiritual inventory of my life, so I collected my thoughts and wrote them down since, in my humble opinion, I write better than I speak. It was a life-changing exercise, so I thought I would share it here to jump back into ye ol' blogosphere (ok, I promise no more use of the word "ye"). It's long, so I'll break it up.

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Engaging God

Motherhood has been the single greatest force in shaping, or should I say reshaping my walk with God. I grew up in the church, going every Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening for many years with my family. I knew lots of Bible trivia, all the Bible songs, and all the “right” answers. I went to church camp for four years, a wonderful place in the mountains of New Mexico, and got baptized there by my youth minister in the seventh grade (in a VERY cold mountain stream). All of those experiences I count as blessings in my life and I am deeply grateful for them.

When I look back though through a more critical lens, I see that for most of my early life, probably until my mid 20’s, I knew a lot about God, but I didn’t really know Him. I didn’t really have a relationship with Him, at least not a two-sided one. I did the church thing and tried my best during the week to live the way I thought a Christian should live, and of course messed up quite royally in the process. I did little outside of church to seek Him; occasional Bible study and very, very little prayer….think “Lord please help me do well on this test!” and you get the gist of the depth of my prayers. In all honesty, I was a Christian completely unengaged with God.

I think a large reason for the complacency in my faith walk has been a life blessed with little in the way of major distress. My immediate family members are alive and healthy (and on speaking terms!), I was raised in a stable, Christian household with a roof over my head and no worries about where my next meal would come from. I’ve had great friendships, ample opportunity and support from my parents to explore my interests, and financial support to pursue two degrees in college. I married a wonderful man and have two beautiful, healthy kids. In short, while my life hasn’t been totally stress- free, it’s been relatively easy. The peril, though, from this complacent faith has been two-fold: it’s fueled a false sense of security that I am in control, and a false sense of pride that I can do things on my own without help. Neither of those things had, prior to motherhood, allowed room for me to consistently seek an authentic relationship with God.

Enter motherhood, stage right. Nothing strips away the security net of I’m-in-control like becoming a parent. Case in point, a trip to the Container Store where my then 15 month-old son’s explosive diaper gurgled up all over the shopping cart right in the middle of the store, leaving me mortified and rushing out to the van as quickly as possible. And yes, for those of you wondering, I did go back, quite embarrassed, and ask a nice cashier for some disinfectant so I could clean the shopping cart up. Or the time when we took Jack to the emergency room with a 104 fever. When the doctor ordered a chest X-ray to make sure it wasn’t pneumonia, my heart broke as I had to help the technician stretch Jack out on a cold, hard plate while he screamed hysterically so the machine could get a good scan of his lungs. Those are just a few examples of probably hundreds.

The I’m-not-in-control lesson has been easier for me to learn compared to the I-cannot-do-it-on-my-own lesson. It is here that once again, motherhood came in and toppled that tower of pride, forcing me to realize that I can’t do it alone. And despite the wonderful help available to me from my husband, family, and friends, I ultimately need to seek help from God.

This came to a head a few months ago during a rough time with Anna. We mommies don’t function well on broken sleep, but unfortunately, our precious infant babies just don’t understand that do they? Morning after morning I would wake up crabby after being up with Anna multiple times during the night, barely speaking to Bob at breakfast and struggling to even muster a semi-cheerful “Hi” to my sweet son Jack. I was exhausted and the day hadn’t even started yet…how was I going to keep up with my two-year-old too? I was resentful of the fact that feeding her fell solely to me (she wouldn’t take a bottle at that time), which meant I was pretty much always up when she was up. I wanted to be able to roll over and go back to sleep like Bob did, instead of dragging myself up the stairs to change the diaper of a screaming baby before nursing her and then struggling to swaddle her in a blanket so she would go back to sleep. On top of all that, he got to escape to work 5 days a week!! In fairness to Bob though, he deserved none of my attitude because he’s a great dad who has always helped out 110% with the kids. Still though, this ugliness I carried around until about 10AM each morning (when the three cups of coffee finally kicked in) began to take a toll on him, because when mom’s not happy, nobody’s happy. He never knew which wife he was going to come home to: Wife #1 who had managed to cheer up a bit by late afternoon, or Wife #2 who had been in a perpetual state of grumpiness all day. I often lashed out at Jack too, for no good reason. No wonder he went through a period of always wanting his daddy, I wouldn’t have wanted to be around me either!

Part #2 tomorrow :)