the kingdom of heaven

For most of my life I’ve had dreams that were far larger than my actual potential. Dreams of becoming a famous author, a renowned photographer, a household-name Bible teacher—for as long as I can remember I’ve wanted to be somebody.

The older I get, the smaller and closer to home my dreams become. I think this is due in equal parts to becoming more realistic, more complacent, and more self-aware. I used to be able to conjure up an imaginary version of myself who enjoyed the apparent glamour of doing a nationwide book tour for my New York Times bestseller, but now, exactly nothing sounds appealing about becoming a glorified traveling salesman whose product is me.

As I continually learn from God, watching Him so slowly and patiently do the work of a Farmer cultivating earth’s harvest, the dreams that once seemed so pressing lose their urgency, along with some of their shine. In their place, a fascination with the glorious mundane takes root—and the small spaces where the first rumblings of world-change always begin, person by person, moment by moment, surrender by surrender.

I asked Sam a few weeks ago, “Do you think it’s dumb if my dream job is just to go back to work at Spuds part-time?” It wasn’t so very long ago that the thought of being satisfied with such a small position in life would have been preposterous to me. But doing the manual work of sorting produce and stocking freight, peppered with cheerful interactions with customers, showed me a little of what I think God intended when He designed work as a good and necessary part of human existence. He made us to work, and to glorify Him in the very doing of it, so that it matters little what kind of work it actually is—big or small, grand or humble, meaningful or mundane. It can nourish the soul and magnify the Creator and bear witness of Him to others, regardless.

And the same can be said for the up-and-down, meaningful-as-well-as-mundane work that is child-rearing, though I feel plenty of words have already been spent on this topic, so I don’t know how much I need add. Only sometimes raising a baby feels like racing on a hamster wheel, where the days are made up of three-hour cycles of sleep-feed-play and the weeks stretch out long and changeless, even though the baby is changing invisibly every day. This, too, is the slow and patient work of the kingdom—the tiniest seed, but with the mightiest potential.

I suppose the hardest part of it all is wondering if I can still have a voice from such a small stage. Does anything I write or create really matter if it comes only from the boring “normal,” instead of the grand? I know there are plenty of “Instagram influencers” who have built their whole brand on sharing the boring normal, but it’s just that—a brand. It’s not real normal, blotted with tears of frustration and gapped by voids of loneliness which no filter can conceal. I don’t want to produce fodder for the ever-starving content machine of social media “mom culture.” That isn’t me at all. But I worry that there aren’t many other options for me now that I’ve had a baby. It’s hard enough to build credibility with a broad audience in the Bible teaching realm as a woman—let alone as a mom.

I remember wondering, before Clara was born, if she’d change me into someone completely different from the self I knew. She has, and she hasn’t.

She has certainly helped me along this journey toward the goodness of small-but-deep work. She’s given me an appreciation for how slowly and graciously God does His work, too. She reminds me that “The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field” (Matthew 13:44). There is a treasure in this that is real and lasting and worth every sacrifice, even when to others it just looks like any old field.

But she hasn’t fundamentally altered the person God made me, the person who is a student and a teacher and longs to help others learn who He is through His Word. My days look different now, but the ultimate goal doesn’t, and I pray every day that God will allow Clara’s little soul to be the firstfruits of the calling.

Then some children were brought to Him so that He might lay His hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, “Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” After laying His hands on them, He departed from there.

Matthew 19:13-15

reflections on the fourth trimester

Clara was born two days after I wrote my last post here—11 weeks ago today. We have one week left of what some people call the “fourth trimester,” when she is separate from my body and yet still constantly attached, when she isn’t getting everything she needs via 24/7 physical connection and yet still kind of is. I don’t expect a switch to flip at the end of the 12th week, but it’s still a little momentous to me that we’re nearly there.

I knew it would be hard. I didn’t know it would be impossible for as long as it was.

I didn’t know I’d spend the first week in a haze of euphoria mixed with pain, or that weeks two and three would feel like existing in a black cloud of despair. I didn’t know I could get so angry at someone so innocent or so worried about someone so small. While other new moms in my Facebook due date group talked about “love at first sight” and “hearts so full,” I felt empty and terrified, like a shell of myself trying to find my way through a labyrinth at midnight all alone, with a tiny dependent creature to keep alive at the same time. I remember thinking so many times, and still do some days, that all I wanted was to go to work—back to a familiar place, simple tasks, clear objectives, and a community of friends.

I know it’s all the rage these days to talk “authentically” about what things like motherhood are “really” like. But I find there’s a sheen of polish on most of those discussions, too, and I think that’s why—even though I was fully prepared for it to be tough and thankless to care for a newborn all day—I was not prepared to do six solid weeks of it with hardly a glimmer of joy. That’s the unpolished truth.

Then she smiled at me intentionally for the first time and what had been impossible finally became just hard. And I can do hard.

Maybe it’s different for the moms who are in love at first sight. Maybe their babies didn’t have an intolerance to dairy that caused them constant pain, or maybe their babies don’t have high palates, preventing them from feeding effectively. Maybe they didn’t go three weeks without sleeping two hours together (because you can only “sleep when the baby sleeps” if the baby actually sleeps). Or maybe they are simply healthier people, holier people, better at doing the impossible.

It’s deeply humbling to see this cavernous lack inside myself. First John 4:19 comes to mind: “We love because He first loved us.” He did the impossible. He sacrificed everything without a glimmer of joy in return, and He did it without succumbing to the exhaustion, the rage, the fear, the desperation. Even if I had never smiled back at Him, He’d have done it all the same.

I wish I had naturally been that mom. As much as I loved her, I wasn’t. As much as I love her today, I’m still not. But I hope I’m getting closer.

life lately

Thinking

nonstop, about everything. As is usual for me—and the more thinking I do, sometimes, the harder it is to sort through all the thoughts and write them out. So this has been a very quiet site for the last month or so. I figured a list like this would give me just enough structure to brain-dump a bit, and maybe the clarity to write with more focus will follow.

Feeling

weird. That seems like the best word to describe the feeling of being pregnant. It’s weird to have a stomach sticking out in front of me and pulling on my back, and it’s weird to be unable to tighten up my abs like usual. It’s weird to feel the thuds and thunks against my insides. It’s weird when I can see them from the outside. It’s weird to get the app updates every week that tell me how big the baby is using fruit or vegetable illustrations—right now she’s as big as a head of lettuce. How in the world does a head of lettuce fit in there?

Eating

a lot of fruit. Strawberries and cherries are in season and I eat so many of them at work! I also just discovered New Zealand sungold kiwis, and I don’t know how something round and yellow and egg-like can taste exactly like the best raspberry I’ve ever had, but I love them.

Noticing

that there’s a very fine line between “Bible student” and “Bible snob.” I love talking and learning about the Bible, so I gravitate toward Facebook groups and podcasts that share my enthusiasm, but I’m often turned off by the way some scholars seem to lord their knowledge over others, or make a mockery of those who try to share in it. It seems to become a competition over who is the better Pharisee rather than a celebration of the God who invites in the little child, and it makes me sad.

Wondering

if all the “problems” I have seen in the Church are really just projections of what I see in myself. I’ve struggled with seeing the Church as more of a skeleton than a body—well-structured with truth, but lifeless, motionless, lacking in spirit and warmth. But the reality is, that’s me most of the time. As an Enneagram 5 who finds great security in attaining knowledge, it’s a very short step for me out of relationship and into religion. Pharisaism comes easily; community, vulnerability, and love are hard. I have to be vigilant to seek after knowing God intimately and experientially rather than merely knowing Him theoretically or theologically.

Playing

“O the Deep, Deep Love of Jesus” and a lovely arrangement called the “Children’s Medley” on my piano. Ever since I got far enough along in my pregnancy that I learned the baby can hear sounds outside the womb, I’ve been trying to play and sing her a few songs on a regular basis. These are my favorites.

Making

sooo much granola. I used to fast from evening until around noon the following day, but I’m back to three meals a day since becoming pregnant, and having fast and healthy things available for when hunger hits with ferocity has helped me a lot. I use coconut sugar, monkfruit, and whole oats so that I don’t feel bad about sprinkling a few chocolate chips on top! ;)

Reading

the Epistles and the very last few Psalms, because Bible180 is almost at an end! It always seems like such a long, hard challenge when I’m in the middle of it, but then I blink and it’s June and I’m almost done. It’s so good to be back in the Story again.

Creating

a baby quilt with a giant, scrappy patchwork strawberry on it. My obsession with fruit apparently extends beyond merely eating it.

Asking

if trying clothes on in a store is actually overrated? I have always felt that fitting rooms are absolutely nonnegotiable when clothes shopping, and I definitely still think so about certain stores where I don’t know my sizing, but since most fitting rooms are closed right now, I’ve been doing a lot more online ordering or grabbing off the rack to try on at home. My success rate at picking clothes I like has actually surprised me, and trying stuff on at home is SO much nicer than in a public fitting room. Thankfully most stores are back to accepting returns when something doesn’t work out, so it’s really the best of all worlds (especially now that I have to figure out the maternity clothes situation).

Watching

so many hummingbirds zoom through my garden. I got a bunch of fuchsia starts for fifty cents each this spring and filled up all my containers and baskets with them, and they’re finally in fully bloom. The hummingbirds love them. (Random aside—I have somehow been spelling the word “fuchsia” as “fuschia” for my entire life. Apparently that’s wrong.)

Enjoying

working my standard Thursday morning shift at Spud’s Produce. Thursdays are the best morning to work, in my opinion, because we get 2-3 grocery loads delivered on top of our usual produce load. I like how much there is to do, and that so much of it involves replenishing dwindling stock on the shelves till they are full and bursting again. I usually get to be the first to see new items come in, and every once in awhile, a misdelivered item means I get free snacks. :)

Worrying

that summer is going to go by too fast. It always does, but with how eventful this year has already been and is promising to continue to be (in good ways as well as bad) it almost feels like being trapped in a tornado that just keeps picking up speed. I want to have space to enjoy the summer, to reflect on everything we’ve been through, and to look forward to what’s to come, but it often seems like there is just not a moment to spare.

Laughing

too little? This one has had me stumped. My cats always make me laugh, and so does watching the birds in the front garden frolicking over the birdbath, but laughter has not been a main element of my life in the last few weeks. That seems sad.

Dreaming

very vividly, thanks hormones.

Doing

lots of squats and stretches for my lower back. I heard squats are good for preparing for labor, so I’ve been adding them in various forms to all my workouts and day-to-day activities. The low-back ache from losing so much core stability has me trying every stretch in the book for relief.

Listening

to an abnormally high amount of news commentary, for me. For a long time I was pretty much a news avoider, but I started on a quest to be better informed a couple years ago, with a special focus on hearing voices from the opposite “side” from myself. I suppose this plays back into my security in knowledge; I wanted to discover which perspectives truly made sense, and know why they made sense. Interestingly, this journey has brought me back to many of the same standpoints I started from, but now I feel a little more firm on why I stand where I do. I’m trying to maintain an open mind, open ears, and open heart—because it’s hard to find that anywhere in the current cultural and political climate—while holding fast to what I know is true, right, and good.

Planning

a kitchen remodel and a baby room—who thought doing both of those at the same time was a good idea, anyway?! Thankfully Sam is doing 99% of the logistics and labor the kitchen will demand, so I have at least some brain space free to think about the fact that we are adding a person to our house in September.

Fearing

what it will be like to transition from a household of two to three, to be honest. Having a child is a weird paradox: Everyone is excited and happy for you, but they’re also the very same people who have made offhand comments over the years about how hard it is to be a parent and how having kids restricts you from doing a lot of your usual activities. It’s a bit like reliving the days before I got married, when so many people stated or implied that I was too young to tie myself down, and was throwing away my life. For someone who doesn’t need a lot of help to overthink things, this can really send me into a tailspin of fear. Is this going to be okay? Can I do it? Will I still be myself, or will I turn into someone I don’t recognize? Will people still want to do things with me? Will I have support, or are Sam and I in this alone? How in the world does one take on the enormous task of raising a person from newborn to adulthood, anyway? In fact, how does the human race still exist? (I realize these questions are progressively more dramatic and absurd—but that’s what I mean by a tailspin.)

Praying

for peace, wisdom, and the presence of God. My path over the last 8-10 years has involved many twists and turns, some of them incredible blessings and some of them terrible heartbreaks, and He has been faithful. So I am trying to keep my eyes set on Him and follow His lead, one step at a time.