Kiss Your Miracle

Should I go back to work? It’s a loaded question. Most people I’ve encountered seem to have a strong opinion on the topic of working mothers. For me, the issue was simpler before I actually became a mom, when the discussion was all just in theory. Back when motherhood was only a daydream, I always pictured myself at home. But somehow the reality I live in today is more complicated than that. I’ve been home since Skylar’s birth last July, officially on a one-year leave from my high school teaching position. But now, with the 08-09 school year drawing to a close, I have a decision to make: do I go back to teaching or let the principal give my spot to someone else?

I’d like to work part-time. Occasionally my school district allows two teachers to share a full-time position. I’d get to teach, but have half the students and half the hours. I’ve also looked into tutoring, online teaching, and online grading. It seems like there are plenty of things I could do to bring in a little extra money without sacrificing the majority of my day at home with Sky. But my problem is that none of those things have come together yet. And my principal said no to part-time teaching, but the full-time position is still waiting for me, complete with health benefits.

My mom suggested that Adam and I pray about the decision every day, so we have. But sometimes it seems like the more I think about it, and the more I try to figure out what’s best, the more uncertain I feel. I page through my Bible asking for God to speak, wanting to suddenly find a big “NO” or “YES” in black ink before me. I was texting with my brother Nelson last week and told him I’ve been agonizing over what to do. “I know,” he wrote back. “It’s hard to make those decisions. ‘Left or right, Lord?’ Then He says, ‘I love you.'” Nelson’s right. And it’s wonderful the way God prioritizes his love for us over any circumstance we face. But I have to admit, my reaction is often an impatient, “Yes God, I know you love me, but what do I do?”

This past weekend I was in Chicago visiting my family and one afternoon I went out to lunch with Nelson and my brother Klaus. We talked about our work and money issues, and then somehow got onto the topic of insomnia, something Adam’s dealt with on and off for years. I was telling them that whenever Adam says he’s really hoping for a good night’s sleep, it’s usually a sign that he’ll be up for hours. It’s like he’s concentrating on it too much. Then Nelson said, “Kind of like when you ask God for a specific answer. If you put all your focus on the yes or no, sometimes it evades you.”

I’m still thinking about that conversation. Of course, God wants us to come to him for guidance. But have I been seeking God? Or just the answer to my dilemma? I think the two are supposed to be inseparable; we should seek God and wisdom simultaneously. But somehow in the decision-making process I seem to have lost focus. I have prayed about the job. But I’ve spent much more time thinking about it. Worrying over it. I’ve looked through my Bible, but with tunnel vision. I can’t honestly say I’ve been quiet before God, open to whatever he might have to tell me, whether it relates to my job dilemma or not. Oswald Chambers says, “The questions that matter in life are remarkably few, and they are all answered by these words – ‘Come to Me.'” I’m a planner and I like to have things decided. But maybe it’s time for me to take a break from over-analyzing my circumstances and just sit in the presence of the Lord.

This Friday I’m flying from where I live in Florida to see my family in Chicago and watch my youngest sister graduate from high school. Sky is coming with me, but Adam has to stay home for work, so the travel part of our trip is not something I’m looking forward to.

Traveling used to be relaxing to me. I loved everything about it – the packing and anticipation, that feeling I’d always get in the car when I left town, the way I couldn’t predict exactly how the trip would go. It was all fun to me. But now “unpredictable” means not knowing what my baby will do in unfamiliar situations. There is a slight chance that Sky will go absolutely berserk and scream her brains out during the flight. I’m already dreading that moment when I get on the plane. I picture myself walking down the skinny center aisle with all eyes on me as I struggle to hold my child and all of our gear without wacking anyone in the head, each passenger praying that I don’t sit down in the empty seat next to them.

And once we get there, things still might be tough. Sky will probably have a hard time sleeping in a new bed and she usually clings to me when she feels insecure. We went to Chicago at Thanksgiving and instead of waking up twice a night as usual, she was suddenly up every hour. This time I’m just planning ahead to be tired.

But even with the work involved, I’m excited to go. Graduation Day will be important for my sister. I want her to remember I was there for her, even if I do spend the actual ceremony wandering around outside with Sky. My family hasn’t seen her since she was four months old. She was just a yummy, squishy baby back then and now she’s practically walking. I can’t wait to see my little girl in my mom’s arms again. And I can’t wait to sit in the kitchen and drink coffee with everyone. I guess it’s the ordinary things I miss the most. I know a small part of me will be relieved when the trip is over and I’m back at home where things with Sky are easier. But for now, the anticipation builds. Sky may be ten months old, but she’s not too young to learn that seeing family is worth the effort.

The other day I was doing some organizing in our home office while Sky sat on the floor playing. She was concentrating hard on closing this little plastic Easter egg she’d found, and when I glanced down at her honey-colored curls and her careful baby hands I had a rush of gratitude for my life as a mom. A box of my old journals sat on the floor near her, so I decided to dig out the one I kept during our last year of infertility. I wanted to read the end of it especially, the part where I was pregnant but didn’t know it yet. And it made me smile – the way I wrote about how tired I was and couldn’t seem to concentrate on my students. But something else jumped out at me from the pages: I was obsessed with God.

Almost every entry talks about him. Or to him. Probably a third of the journal is written prayer. I wrote about the Bible studies I was doing, the spiritual discussions Adam and I were having, our fasting days. I wrote out confessions and prayers for forgiveness and the things I wanted most out of life. Some days I had just copied Bible verses onto the pages. And it made me think: if I was thriving in my faith then, what am I now? I still pray every day. Adam and I try to get in a few minutes together with our Bibles before he leaves for work in the mornings. But if I had to categorize my spiritual life overall these days, I’d probably call it… well, distracted. Is that how most new moms feel? Some days it’s hard to keep a train of thought going long enough to find the grocery list. I’ll pick up the pencil and realize that shoot, whatever I was going to write down vanished from my head in the five seconds it took me to walk over here.

In a way, my intensity during our infertility makes sense. Infertility forced me to a crisis point in my faith. Over and over as I cried about the pain, a question would come to my mind: if God never gives me a baby, does that mean my relationship with him is done? And as soon as I could feel that thought on the horizon of my mind I’d will it to go away, telling God, “Please, please, don’t make me answer that.” And I’d try to keep praying. But once the thought arrived, I couldn’t get rid of it. He wouldn’t let me get around it. I was constantly confronted with the reality that truly following God can’t be conditional, no matter what circumstance I want to change. Some people think becoming a Christian means making one big decision to follow Jesus. And in a way it does. But my experience is that Jesus constantly asks me that question. “Will you follow me? Even now when you’re hurt? Confused? Will you follow me through this when you don’t understand what I’m doing?” Infertility brought me to a place where I had to choose definitively: I was either going with God or heading off alone. There was no in between. Those days were so difficult for me that I had to lean on him just to get by. It wasn’t possible to be half-hearted.

Then, just like that, I was pregnant. And suddenly, life picked up speed. We put our house on the market and it sold in a week. We moved into an apartment and started building another house. I finished the school year 36 weeks pregnant and we moved again, into a different apartment. After Sky was born we moved once more, this time into our new house. We were thrilled to have our miracle baby and completely overwhelmed by her at the same time. Most of my journal then, when I did manage to write, was full of details about my sleepless nights, my breastfeeding issues, and the parenting books I was reading. I know I was reading my Bible too, but I don’t really remember God teaching me specific things – just that he was with me.

When I think about God these days his sweetness to me comes to mind first. But reading that old journal made me wonder about my passion for him. Have I become complacent? Or is it just that my life has changed so we interact in a new way now? Psalm 34:18 says, “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” God proved the truth of those words to me during the infertility. I don’t think that means I’m not close to God now, but somehow my bond to him feels different. It seems to me that in all relationships there are times of focused connection and times of simply being together quietly. Maybe it’s the same way with God. I don’t want my faith to be based primarily on feelings, where I need to create a big, emotional experience every time I pray and I don’t believe that’s what God requires. But at the same time, I don’t want to turn to him just when things are hard and excuse myself from seeking him when things are good.

Maybe comparing my relationship with God now to how it was then is the wrong way to evaluate things. Even as I write this I hear that same, simple question in my head, Jesus asking me, “Are you following me today, whether things are awful or boring or wonderful?” And I think that maybe I’m complicating what he intends to be basic – simply doing what I can to move forward with him today.

Sky looks a lot like her daddy. She has my nose, but the rest of her face is a girl version of Adam. One of my favorite things to do these days is watch them interact. Adam crawls around with her on the floor, chasing her and tickling her till she’s laughing and shrieking at the same time, basking in the center of his attention. At ten months old she’s starting to say “ma-ma-ma-ma-ma” here and there, which I take as an attempt to call me mom. But when Adam comes home from work her entire face lights up and she says in a clear voice, “Da-da!” I make a big deal over how unfair that is when I’m the one who’s with her twenty-four hours a day, but secretly I love the way they connect. It’s one of the best parts about motherhood – getting to see my husband enjoy his baby girl, who is somehow partly him and partly me, and still entirely unique.

When I think back over the infertility, I remember how much I wanted to see Adam become a father. I always knew he’d be a great dad. There were many times when I wanted a baby more for his sake than for mine, and he often said the same thing about me. Some people might question why anyone would enter the world of fertility treatments, eagerly spending thousands of dollars to endure a string of personal, painful procedures for just the possibility of ending up pregnant. Why do we even have such a powerful drive for children in the first place? It’s difficult to explain. All I know is that when I look at Skylar Grace with her daddy, I see the answer.

There’s something to be said for not assuming things. It’s not a good idea to look at every childless couple and jump to the conclusion that they’re trying to get pregnant. Not everyone wants children. But for us, the fact that we didn’t chat about our infertility at every barbecue and picnic led some people to assume we just didn’t want kids yet, and they felt free to ask us about it. At large social gatherings casual acquaintances would throw questions at us without warning. When do you plan to have kids? How many do you want? Sometimes they were slightly accusatory – Why don’t you have kids yet? Those usually came with a bonus remark like – When I was your age I already had three! I always wondered how those particular people wanted us to respond. With an apology? With detailed information about my reproductive issues? In the moment, I’d feel like I had some explaining to do. Later, usually on the way home, anger would surge up inside me and I’d think of all the things I should have said in response.

Adam would listen to me rant and rave and then gently remind me that people didn’t mean anything by their questions. “They’re just curious and we should try to take them lightly,” he’d say. “No one intends to be hurtful.” I knew he was right. “Still! You never know what someone’s dealing with,” I’d tell him. “People should be more sensitive!” I really struggled with the flippant comments. Sometimes in my low moments I’d hear their words again in my mind and I’d feel like even more of a failure. I knew God wanted me to forgive and let go, and that my identity should be in him. I tried, but it was always a major effort.

Then one day during that time I was at a Bible study and the topic of depression came up. Someone mentioned a friend who might go on medication for it and I said I hoped that meds wouldn’t be necessary. Later that night the leader pulled me aside and said, “Linnea, so-and-so (person in the group) is on medication for depression right now. Please be careful when you talk about that, okay? She resists being on meds in the first place, but they’re helping her and she needs to stay on them.” I mumbled a weak “okay” as I left, and headed out to my car feeling misunderstood and defensive. I hadn’t said it was wrong to be on meds for depression. Several people I love have benefited from medication and I felt like I’d been very supportive of them.

I kept thinking about the discussion as I drove home. Then I asked myself a question. If I had known beforehand that the woman sitting next to me in the circle was on depression medication and that she felt conflicted about it, would I have said the same thing? And I had to admit, I wouldn’t have. Suddenly I made the connection between what I had said about depression meds and the casual remarks I’d been so wounded by myself. I thought about the way my comment implied that it’s good not to be on medication, that coping without it would somehow be better. I could have simply said I’d be praying instead of injecting my opinion into the discussion. I thought again about my Bible study friend and wondered if my comment would replay in her mind the next time she sat down to take her medication. And I began to get that sick feeling I always have when I regret something I’ve said.

I made a decision that night. Anytime I found myself in a group and a sensitive topic came up – infertility, depression, alcoholism, abortion, marriage problems, anything painful and personal – I would talk about it as if someone there was in that specific situation. It’s not that I planned to assume things. It’s just that we all have struggles and plenty of them are kept private, even in Christian circles. Especially in Christian circles.

It’s been almost three years since that conversation at Bible study and I’m sure I’ve said the wrong thing many times since then. I’m a talker, which can be dangerous. But at the very least I’m paying more attention. There is a verse in Psalm 141 that I often pray: “Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips” (v. 3). I don’t think I’ll ever regret being too careful with my words.