The Gospel and Motherhood
If I were honest…
I have struggled to talk about becoming a mom. Unlike what is popularly assumed of women in the Christian church, I never had aspirations of becoming a biological mom. My lady bits have always been a mess and I was pretty certain I couldn’t. I never really mourned over this reality because I never really burned with the desire to bring children into this world. For many years, I experienced this combo as grace.
Feeling this way and being a public person in Christian circles has made for some interesting tension over the years. I have had to sit through many awkward conversations about my body with strangers after services and shows; navigate lots of projections and stereotypes we heap onto women; swerve heavy condemnation and shame being a visible woman in the church and “not honoring God by giving my husband children”… You name it, I’ve probably heard it.
To put it lightly (not ignoring the legitimate trauma I had to work through in therapy), all those years made for a lot of opportunities to grow in grace, work through anger and shame, and gain teary eyes for people in our midst who are made to feel like the outsider. Once I fully embraced that Jesus didn’t hate me for not having babies, my heart and actions were able to embody the compassion of Jesus toward others in a way I could not self-contrive. This was a miracle, my community can testify.
I learned to embrace spiritual motherhood, to see the work of ministry as a holy form of mothering many, and began to see the gospel as we explored the potential of fostering and adopting potentially… that was that. I was at peace. We were at peace. The Dalls were moving forward and making our way out of our Covid career collapse and personal devastation.
In March of 2021, I was shook to my core at the news I was pregnant. I knew it before I knew it, too afraid to look at the test result. I made Brian do it, poor guy stood alone in the bathroom for minutes trying to figure out what the two lines meant.
Screaming. Many tears. Lots of cussing. Anger and confusion. Rage, even. Hours outside in the middle of the night pacing in circles calling my closest girl friends for prayer and to talk me off a ledge of sorts. (Pause, ate a sandwich Brian brought to me in the cold.) We told each other it was okay to pretend this wasn’t happening for a couple weeks. We lived our lives trying to ignore the news.
Weeks rolled by, denial and more tears…. Severe depression, some pleading with God. Weeks turned into months and I was sick as dog on the bathroom floor, wanting to die. We had to tell our family. Then total numbness, more pleading with God. Reluctant acceptance began, so did isolation and coping away from crowds. Loads of yelling and groaning, “God!!!!!!”
And after a long and brutal pregnancy, she came. Parker Lu made me a biological mother. A day I never dreamed, a moment I didn’t even know how to want, happened. Despite every single doubt and dread in my body, I was met by a faithful God, who imparted to my head, heart, and soul a manner of love that COULD NEVER COME FROM ME. The gospel (good news) of motherhood: Jesus gives me all I need to be here, to love (her), to become.
This has always been true. It has remained true in this.
My journey into motherhood has ushered me again and again to the gospel of Jesus. I’m believing more every day He is good and loves me. Whether it was learning to embrace not having children and being at rest in the love of God, or what it has meant unexpectedly becoming a mom and not knowing where the desire to become this would come from… Jesus has loved me and given me what I need. Grace has abundantly and sufficiently hemmed me in, held me together in my lowest and darkest moments, and held every prayer with care.
The Lord in many ways has mothered me. I have known him as Father, but now I have begun to experience a oneness with God as a Perfect Mother too. Isaiah 49:15: “Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the child of her womb? Even if these forget, yet I will not forget you.” (Shameless plug: go read my friend @thejesslou‘s book #howgodlovesus )
There are many rabbit trails I could tangent or muse about regarding my recent discoveries about Mother Mary, Jesus and Gender, and the beauty of male and female, but I’ll just say this: the Gospel has never been more clear to me, nor has my joy ever been so deep in my experience with Jesus. God has gifted me this in becoming a mom. I wouldn’t have chosen it but He gave it to me this way anyway.
The last year has been a profound and life-changing reintroduction to the triune God, who keeps expanding and blowing away all my misconceptions of understanding. I feel so small and so intimately cared for by the One who made me. And Brian. And Parker. All of it is a freaking miracle from conception, to actually loving being a mom, God has done impossible things I never imagined.
My sister, my brother: God doesn’t just have intimate knowledge of you and me, he intimately knows how to give the best gifts… even when we are refusing them and trying to push them away. The gospel is just that. It’s not that I chose Him, but he chose me. The most glorious thing is not that you choose him, but that he has chosen you.
How beautiful it is to be experiencing the Godhead all the more in who I have become, who I am still becoming. Today, my heart is full of gratitude and praise. If your heart is inclined, rejoice with me! God of the impossible has only “good things for those who love him and called according to His purposes.”