The Disillusioned Mom

Disillusion: to free from or deprive of illusion, belief, idealism, etc.; disenchant.

Being a mother has completely rocked my existence, and while I knew it would I had no idea to what degree.  The life I once knew, the person I knew myself to be, and even my understanding of my God I knew changed entirely.  I really struggled with this change; I could not understand how something I had wanted so badly could leave me feeling, at times, so empty and so very lost.  I became disillusioned with the life I was leading.  Very few things were as I imagined they would be.

I think part of me was extremely ideal about motherhood.  I truly believed that it was a club where once I became a member I would find immediate acceptance and understanding.  Clearly everyone spoke the same language, shared the same struggles, needed the same things.  There would be instant friends, instant play dates, time would be spent making connections with other moms.  And yes being a mom would be so very hard, but it would be okay because I would find other moms willing to help me, willing to answer my questions, willing to let me sit on their couch and cry while my child screamed in my arms.  This was a pie-in-the-sky fantasy, one that I am ashamed to admit to have even conjured.  But I am ideal by nature.  I believe the best in people, I believe the best in situations, I believe the best in the future.  I am hopeful, I always have been. 

And perhaps there is nothing wrong with having the ideal, perhaps that wasn't where my problem lie.  Perhaps the problem arose in my response to the realities.  Because my response was disappointment, anger, despair, frustration, and loneliness. I could not believe how very alone I felt.  I never really realized how being a teacher shaped so much of who I was and fed into my belief that I could have it all. 

I have come to discover that I really had a lot of control in my world as a teacher.  Even though I did not know exactly how students would respond to a question or activity, I had the ability to pose the question, to plan the activity.  I walked into each day with an idea of what was going to happen, the materials necessary to implement my plan, and for the most part, the respect of the students who would follow along with my plan.  I had hundreds of meaningful conversations and relationships that I cultivated each day.  I would interact with teachers, students, staff and feel full knowing that I had invested in them, loved them the best that I could.  I felt safe and I had a large semblance of control in my day (which leads me to feeling more certain that when Another Country was banned from my classroom, I felt like I had lost control of my own little world and thus came my severe bout with anxiety.) 

I always believed that being a mom would not be unlike teaching.  I would provide my children with structure, I would have a plan and while I didn't know exactly how they would respond, out of their love and respect for me, they would follow along for the most part.  For those of you who are parents, you are laughing aloud right now at my naivete.  Because a typical day in the life of my child is not scheduled or planned at all.  I have no idea what time of day Izzy will wake up.  I don't know exactly when she'll want to eat or what she'll want to eat.  I may have an activity planned, but while we are out she'll suddenly become exhausted and need to sleep.  We will get home and then Isabelle will have a burst of energy and run like mad around our house.  I will try to put her down for a nap and she'll wriggle off of my lap to go find a corner to poop in.  She'll go down for a nap and I'll have no idea if she will want to sleep for an hour or three!  I'll start a blog post, an email, a shower and she will wake up crying, or screaming, needing immediate attention.  No manner of planning for my day ever works out.  In fact I would say that I can count on one hand the number of times I have done everything I set out to do in one day in the time I set out to do them.

This is not to say that I do not LOVE being Isabelle's mom!  The unpredictability, the laughter, the hugs, the joy, the learning of new things, the sharing of new experiences--these are the joys I get out of not having everything planned, out of not being in control.  Being a mom is nothing like I imagined in a lot of great ways too.  No one can imagine the immense warmth you feel when your child sees you and runs to you with a huge smile of recognition knowing you are Safe, you are Love.  No one can prepare your heart for the delight you will feel when your baby begins babbling nonsensical sounds that clearly are the most important words ever uttered.  There is no illusion that one can create in her mind that begins to touch on the miracles of mothering.  Those conceptions are shattered as well but they are stained glass windows broken to reveal the breathtaking view of God's hand-painted landscape!

And that is what I am coming to accept about the other shattered dreams of motherhood.  After angry, sad, frustrated conversations with God about how He was not providing for me, after agonizing over the emptiness that is unfilled play date times in my schedule, after wrestling with my own expectations of people, of God, of life, I have found at the core a disillusionment with myself.  Because it turns out I do not have anything together.  I don't have control of my life (and I never did before, even though I wanted to believe I did).  I am broken, I am flawed, I am so far from perfect at mothering, at friending, at serving God.  The God I had put in such a limited box, the God that complied to my structure, my control, my ideals, wasn't really God at all.  I had created God into my image instead of allowing Him to conform me to His image.  And I'm learning that the only way to be conformed to Him is to let Him break me.  The more I am a broken heap on the floor outside of Isabelle's room in the middle of the night when she won't sleep, the easier it is for Him to pick up the pieces and begin to build a masterpiece.  When I'm holding His hand only allowing Him to break off this piece here--it's dispensable--or to place that piece over there--it'll be less conspicuous that way--He is not free to create a reflection of Himself in me.

A few weeks ago at church the pastor said that those who are truly in a relationship with Christ would grow in humility and joy at the same time.  Let that sink in.  Humility? and Joy? at the same time?  How can realizing over and over again how broken I am result in joy?  Humility allows us to realize how much we need God and how much we have no idea what we actually need from God.  Humility says to God "You do it. You know better."  And then we get to sit back and watch, watch Him take the illusions we had for ourselves, shatter them, and reveal the real masterpiece hidden underneath.  There is joy is seeing who I can be if only I would let God work.

After a year of wrestling and being so disappointed with the way that motherhood is, with the mother I am and the mother I am not, I am finding peace.  This stay at home mom gig is so much harder than I imagined and not at all what I would have dreamed up for myself.  But I also would never have envisioned working with our refugee families and the joy that has come from building those relationships!  I never would have fathomed the beautiful conversations that Jesus and I have in the quiet of the night.  I could not have grasped the intense passion I now have for praying for those who are physically starving all over the world.  God knows what He's doing, I've seen that to be true over and over again in my life.  So even when my dreams are shattered I can believe that He is rebuilding a stained glass window in me of unspeakable beauty.