Motherhood: A Steep Learning Curve
“Do not be grieved,
for the joy of the Lord is your strength.”
Nehemiah 8:10 (ESV)
Today’s post is dedicated to all the Moms who have labored in both love and sorrow, pain and joy, life and death. “May the Lord reward your work and your wages be full from the Lord.” Ruth 2:12
In 1979 I was pregnant with our first child. To prepare for my upcoming delivery, my husband and I registered for Lamaze classes at a small local church. During our eight-week class, Bruce and I joined other expectant parents and dutifully brought our pillows and mats each week. During class we lay on the church’s cold floor and practiced breathing exercises designed to help me relax during the labor and delivery process. At home Bruce encouraged me as I practiced my “ha-ha, hee-hee” deep breathing pants. As my due date approached, I was confident that I was as prepared as possible. My overnight bag was packed with the required items on my Lamaze list.
Still I worried. “What if I can’t do this, Mama?” I hesitantly asked my mother.
“Oh, you’ll do it!” Mama laughed. “You won’t have a choice! Besides, labor is the easy part. Parenting is much harder!”
“I’ll just be glad to get a good night’s sleep again, “ I replied wearily.
“Trust me,” Mama said confidently. “Once that baby is born, you’ll never sleep the same again!”
Truer words were never spoken.
Our daughter arrived two weeks early. None of my prenatal classes could have totally prepared me for Meredith’s actual birth. My labor pain was far more intense than any classroom instruction had predicted. Early on I recognized the huge gap between my Lamaze class expectations and my actual labor experience. But my parenting learning curve was just beginning with my labor pains. No prenatal class could have possibly prepared me for the profound joy that also accompanied Meredith’s birth. Pain and joy co-mingled instantly. And the joy of her birth far outweighed the anguish of my labor.
I shouldn’t have been surprised at the co-mingling of pain and joy. Labor wasn’t an “either/or” pain/joy experience, but a “both/and.” Jesus predicts it saying, “A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born, she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.” (Luke 16:21)
What was true for my daughter’s birth was also true for each one of our sons. Pain and joy co-mingled instantly with each new birth. The same has been true with our 43-year parenting journey. Each parenting stage brought its own pain and joy, love and loss as we raised our four children and prepared them to one day leave us. It was especially true for James Bruce.
Much like labor and parenting, grief is a process that has its own steep learning curve. As a special needs parent, I had 38-years of experience with Chronic Sorrow, but nothing prepared me for the profound grief of James Bruce’s death. Death on this side of heaven is so final. GriefShare experts suggest that it usually takes 2-4 years to heal from the death of a spouse and 5-8 years to heal from the death of a child.
But there has also been much God-given joy in the midst of our pain. In his excellent book Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, author Tim Keller says that “thinking and thanking” are two essential disciplines for enduring pain, suffering, loss, and grief.
“Thanking” proved to be easier for me than “thinking,” at least initially. Grief fog is very real. My thinking was muddled for days. Gratitude, however, came almost instantly when I received the news of James Bruce’s death. I wasn’t grateful for his death of course, but I was so very grateful for the gift of his life and the privilege of being his Mama. Over the next few minutes, I was also grateful for Bruce, our family, and James Bruce’s 11 months of residential life at Rainbow Omega. As word of James Bruce’s death spread quickly, I was grateful for our church, friends, school, and athletics communities who wept with us.
I am also very grateful for Bible Bits and each of you. What began in 2004 as an electronic tool to coordinate hospice care for Bruce’s best friend, eventually became a record our special needs parenting journey with James Bruce. I am forever grateful to have 18 years of pain and joy recorded through Bible Bits. It truly has been a way to gather our broken pieces (John 6:12).
Finally, I am grateful that the realities I have known to be true as a special needs Mom are still true as a parent who grieves the loss of her beloved child:
God is sovereign.
God is faithful.
God is good.
God is God and I am not.
“Acceptance brings peace,” writes author Elisabeth Elliot.
Jesus is our ultimate example for the intermingling of both pain and joy. The anonymous writer of Hebrews encourages us to “fix our eyes on Jesus…who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross.” (Hebrews 12:2)
His joy is indeed my strength. (Nehemiah 8:10) And that joy is far greater than my current pain and grief because we have the hope of heaven. James Bruce is safely home with His Savior!
Thanks be to God!