Shattered plastic, Roaring glass

"One in eight new mothers have post partum depression" Our number was called last year. As I return to the day of our birth, so many deaths occurred. One of them being the death of pride. I no longer had the ability to say I was okay because you weren't silent. You waited months for me to smile, laugh and accept what God blessed me and one year later I am humbled by your presence, your gift, and your fight for me to be better. You cried until I held you so I would remember what it felt like to touch , you stared at me until I would look down and kiss your forehead. Little by little you kept me going but you needed me to get well so you would be well. I remember every day praying that this day would be better and you always believed it would. It stopped raining, I stopped drowning, we began living. My dear son you will be one and I will be skin to skin holding you , laughing with you, telling you the day you were born was they day I was called to be better, to see and appreciate the fragility of living . I would never redeem our number for the sake of dismissing the pain....I would never deny the beautiful lesson and journey you brought me. I will never be able to silence suffering nor blind my eyes of it. I welcome it with a mothering gleam whispering ..Happy Birthday son, Happy birth day to us.

Screaming with no sound

I suppose now that I am on the other end of my post partum I can sit here and dwell in my pain with gladness. My storm was HIS plan to bring me back in his arms so he could reshape me , cuddle me and well frankly , knock me down from my shiny wall of idle. Days of crying and screaming makes me shamefully stand up and realize that pain was my friend and brought me closer to my savior. I would open my eyes and tears would instantly fill them , my mouth was dry from silently praying for me to make it and not have my children in harms way. He faithfully stood near me and like a parent watched me painfully rebuild , repair, and repent. I have never felt the gleaming light of God more than ever as it laid on my back of beaten whipped wounds of pride and judgment. The soothing of his hand that pushed aside my hair while my head layed low on the dirt of my filthy fame and dishonor. In moments of the darkest of darkest, I didnt have to wait to see my savior, he stood right there , wiping my face and guarding those who wanted to harm me , tempt me, take from me....I could here something out there saying, "where is your God?" with arrogant laughter. I would scream , "Lord where are you?" "damn it reveal yourself so I am not a liar." His mercy would rain down on me and in the silence I heard him whisper his gentle self letting me know he was near, to believe, keep faith, and KNOW he is God. Raging back and forth , each day I grew in his promise . I know his promise, I believe it, I have seen it, I have felt the power of his hand switch off darkness and frightened those who were waiting....I was not spared the rod from my father and I will not forget the loving hands who shielded me from slaps of helplessness. I will not yield.

Somewhere in between....a parent and a child

Jesus talked about the narrow road...when I hear this I struggle in the idea of staying narrow, but I realize that it's not the same narrow I run from..its the two sides that keep us in so we don't become too narrow , we stay balanced, healthy, and not extreme...Once again I am in humility that God would take the time to work with me , train me and guide me through this as I parent. I find myself exactly where I want to be with him, in the middle, not extreme on both ends. I learned this on my very difficult journey with my last birth, my child. I was extreme and where I wanted to birth, how I wanted it to be, and never left the possibility that God may have other plans...after finding myself exactly where I hoped not to be , I scattered to keep my mothering in other ways... to parent a way that was comfortable and accepting to my standards,not at all asking God, "Lord please guide me" I was guiding myself straight into a spiral and before I knew it was sitting across Jesus , not with him. My son and I spiraled together and I couldn't see beyond my pride, and my desire to do things one way...Yes we all say we will do anything for our children but I can stand and admit that I wasn't willing to bend, to ask, to mold into something my child needed. It really saddens me and mostly because I look back and realize how much mothering judgement I laid on myself and then to others. I find it beautiful that God pulled me right up out of all of this, stripped me of everything, and let me crawl around for awhile as his child. At one point , I looked up and cried, asking God to hold me and carry me. And as any parent would, he swooped me up, cradled me and nursed me back to health. My thought is mothering is a beautiful and magnificent mosaic but like a mosaic , it can look and shape differently for others... I really believed in mothering through ideals, birth, nursing, and they became my extreme where I got lost, hopeless, blinded ....and my self started to run through my hands like sand, no ground, no substance ,no middle, no more....

Risen from the dead, a new mother

Really there is no way I can describe the journey I have endured but that I was dead and my faithful savior rose me from it . I pleaded daily for this to occur at once but it was slow with long days of silence. I would awake and count the minutes till I could return to sleep as my pain was endless and the suffering was unbearable. Nobody asked how I was doing anymore because the paleness and emptiness in my soul spoke before me. From a therapeutic point I knew that I needed help so like a good little therapist I went and sought one. I sat there wailing in tears and rage wanting to strike my maker at the same time clinging to HIM because he was my only friend. Jesus was the only one at night that stroked my heart to keep beating and gave me dreams that it would get better, I would be better. At times he would speak through my infant whispering to me that this is all for a reason and that I would survive. Months later my eyes were awoken to a beautiful scene of a mother who found her way back to her baby, a mother who accepted that suffering shapes us, and life is not our own. A mother that has never enjoyed giggling with a baby more than now, a mother who appreciates the small voice letting me know that I am not a failure. The enemy has left my home and wandered somewhere else for now because like Job, God was protecting me the entire time but like Job and his abundance, I had to lose it to know what I had, I had to painfully suffer so I could taste someone elses wound, be more aware, I had to be closed in so I would be more accepting, I had to surrender so I could feel the risen of Jesus and the heaviness of his tomb being lifted from my body and truely understand that I have been saved.

The Weeping Camel

I watched this documentary about a camel who rejected her newborn after a traumatic long birth. I too had a long traumatic birth only to end up having to present myself in a hospital consenting to an unnatural circumstance of birthing, a ceserean. For months I believed it was the ceserean that had subjected me to this overwhlelming sense of hopelessness, not believing my infant son is truely mine and wishing I would never wake up in the morning. However I have taken sips of that thought and realize that it was the journey before the hospital ride, it was the pleading, the praying and the yearning to see my baby in my arms. Every push put me in disbelief that I would never see my baby, something was wrong and I could not help him. Four days later I didn't want to look at him, hold him , breath in him . I didnt know that this was happening and I find it disturbing. Suddenly he would not nurse,and would cry uncontrollably. He was sad too but determined to bring back his mother. For weeks he would cry and I would scream inside wishing I didnt have a baby. In the documentary , the camel weeps when she finally allows her colt to nurse, she surrendured as any good mother would to a will of love and sacrifice. I think of Jesus and how he carried, loved and sacrificed for all to do his fathers will. Months later I have taken small steps toward nuzzling my son, laughing with him, and talking to him while he nurses letting him know that he is my son, he shares my blood, I thank him for reminding me that no one can replace me,no one can give him my milk, my breath, my mothering. I give myself permission to be a weeping mother of surrender and peace knowing that he is a child of God , he is not mine to create dreams and plans, he is my Father's will in which I collapse and in pain, say it is finished.

Better to Be Mary than Martha when in Postpartum

After months of struggling in postpartum depression , I think of when Jesus visits Mary and Martha and how Martha struggled with the busyness of her life and questions Mary. Jesus has dwell ed in my brokenness, my home of despair... wanting to teach me while I ran around in the wide path of nowhere. I heard him daily whispering to me, "come, sit and learn what I am doing in your life."But in the beginning I would say "no I am too angry at you for allowing me this much pain" and now I sit with a struck of humility weeping at his feet in pure joy. He looked favorably toward Mary because she sat with him in stillness , teachable. Many areas of my life I have resembled Martha in her running around trying to keep up and appear to my company that I am okay. These months of pain and disappointment moments have pushed me in a corner with no choice to lean against, slide down, and sit with HIM. He continues to train me in surrendering to his will and reminds me to take joy and thank him in this circumstance of suffering. I have yelled at my God and pleaded asking "why?" Yet he continues to smile on me while his enemy swarms around like a bee stinging me with self doubt, pride, failure and a heart of idleness. And with each sting, I smile back knowing only by his mercy I have survived , I am better, I am his will, I am Martha discovering what cannot be taken from me.

House of prayer or den of robbers?

Jesus was disgusted by hypocrites and I feel close to that wrath. In the past few months I have encountered people who claim false gods, worship a mother that never existed, and replace with a peaceful sign of a natural lifeless journey. I am unable to communicate to them anymore and hear that my God is some helper out there for only me, something I have created in my own. I feel that I have risen from this place they call safe and like minded and ripped out for the glory that I may have forgotten had I comfortably stayed. I have long suffered in the valley feeling the sun blaze my back calling me home. God has revealed his teaching and that suffering is an honor and I grow from the pain that inflicted my body, my womb, my breasts. True surrendering is not giving up, its letting go what really was never mine to keep, to worship, to beg back. I pity the one who sits and asks, "what is she saying?" The one with sight can see but choose to stay blind and look for the shiny gold calf to justify.