There Is Only One Mask

I recently heard an acquaintance discussing the fact that she felt it was time for her and her husband to have children, but she was unsure because she "didn't want to lose her identity" to becoming a mom.  She didn't want to give up who she was, her hobbies, business, and interests in order to become a mom.  Being the mom of four kids, I wondered if she felt that I lacked an "identity" or interests or hobbies.  I'm sure, absolutely positive, that her comments were not meant to reflect on me, but it is hard not to take those sorts of things personally when one is in the relevant demographic of the topic of conversation.  And then I wondered myself about my own identity.  Is it gone because I spend all day with four kids?  She is a sister in Christ, but the discussion lacked the time and venue for me to spill out all the thoughts I have on this issue.  So, here it goes.

Certainly, motherhood is pretty all consuming.  Unless your hobby is currently "wiping gross things", then time will definitely be lost to that pursuit should you invite children into your home.  And the neediness.  Newborns need a lot, but so do nine year olds.  And teens, I hear.  The newborn depends on you for every little thing, you are all he wants, and his wants are his needs.  It's funny because you think they grow up and they don't need you as much, but I've found that there is just a different way that they need you and make you feel as though you are spent at the end of each day.  Mainly this involves talking about Minecraft.  So, all of these little persons certainly do take a lot out of me.  A lot.  And I don't always handle it gracefully.  I would say I rarely handle it gracefully.  And if I start reflecting on all of that it can get pretty depressing, pretty fast.  Sometimes I don't like who I am as a mom because I am impatient, angry, and harsh with the people I love the most.  And sometimes that feels like I've lost my identity, because before the kids I wasn't that person at all.

Mom, I spilled my identity all over your kitchen floor

Here's the thing:  as a Christian woman, I have no identity except that which is in Christ.  The Bible tells me my life is hidden with Christ in God.  Think about our lives being hidden with Christ for a minute.  If something is hidden it cannot be seen, right?  Of course God made me to be a unique person with my own personality and likes and dislikes, but my identity does not lie in my ability to spend time doing things I enjoy.  Nor does it suffer if I am serving others.  Quite the contrary!  I know people find this sanctimonious, but I really cannot find any scriptural basis for putting on my own oxygen mask first (as is the common phrasing nowadays from those who tell me I need to get time for myself).  That is not what Jesus did, not how he lived.  He did not carve out "me time" for the sake of his own pleasure, he was not "intentional" about "self care".  He died.  A horrible death.  He surrendered himself for other people who were much needier than he would ever be.  He did not waste time looking out for Number One as I so often do.  Could you imagine Jesus telling us to stop bothering him because he needed time to pursue his own goals?

So.  What do we do with that?  We look to Christ as an example and stop fighting.  Stop fighting to retain what we think of as ourselves.  The navel gazing, the selfishness, the inward focus on how we are lost in a sea of diapers and spit up and Lego and mess.  Surrender to his calling for us to lose our lives for His sake (Mark 8:35).  We are in that sea, but we are not lost.  We are showing the glory of God to our children!  His glory is in sacrifice, love, and redemption, not worrying about who we are aside from all of those things.  I think if we can do this, then it helps us see all the amazing ways we are blessed even when we feel at the end of our ever lovin' rope.


Go back to the oxygen mask for a second while I completely wear out this metaphor.  Instead of thinking about putting on our own mask first, think of it like this:  there is only one mask.  Who gets it?  As Christians, what are we supposed to do with the mask?  Christ gave it to his enemies.  In every moment of everyday, we have to decide who gets the mask.  The beautiful thing, is, of course, that God gives us breath, just like he gave the widow more oil in her jars.  The widow gave that oil away, she wasn't allowed to hoard it, and God kept giving it until she had fully atoned for her debt.  And now my metaphors are mixed, but hopefully you can see where I'm going here.

God gives us children to help us turn away from ourselves.  Of course it is painful.  Because we are dying.  We are dying to ourselves.  That hurts.  And sometimes it hurts a lot.  It can be dark.  But what makes it darker still is when we turn inward and focus on all that we used to be without the children involved, how lovely our lives were when we could pursue all of our favorite hobbies and pastimes.  How patient and loving and kind we were to everyone -- before anyone moved in with us and really tested any of those qualities about ourselves by getting up in our personal space all day everyday.  We can focus on trying to save ourselves by getting "me time" or trying to regain what we think will make us happy and give us peace.  The truth is that God peels back those layers to show us something -- He shows us our need for Him.  That we are truly sinful.  It's not just that we lose it occasionally and are normally really great people.  It's that, without the gifts he has given us, we are desperately, desperately small minded and impatient and quick to anger.  Our kids show us this in ourselves everyday.  Our kids show us we are not okay.  They point us to Jesus every day!  In all of our service to them, we should be praying that we would die to ourselves, that we could lose ourselves in service.  And remember:  "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:1-2)

3 + 1

Ever since I had my fourth child and first girl, I have gotten many comments about our family.  First off, I think four children is seen as "a lot" by most people.  In my experience, three was certainly pushing it.  But, since I had three boys people would ask if we were going to try again for a girl.  I think since I didn't have "one of each" it was acceptable to keep trying for that ideal family dynamic that includes both boys and girls.  I mean, poor me for being the only female in the family, right?

Except it wasn't exactly that way for me.  I always knew I wanted more than three kids, regardless of their gender.  And an important point that everyone always seemed to forget when asking me if I was ever going to have a girl, or tsk-ing in sympathy for all my boys, is that I had no say in the matter at all.  Short of some pretty invasive scientific procedures, I couldn't anymore produce a girl child at my whim than I could, say, produce a child with a specific eye color.  I know everyone knows this, but it just seemed to pop up in conversation quite a bit

So it has been over a year since I had Eleanor and the amount of times I have heard, "So you finally got your girl!" has been astounding.  Or something like, "Just had to keep trying, huh?" or, "So now you have a girl, you can stop."  The comments, intentional or not, often come off like I was shuffling the card deck and hoping for a different outcome each time.  The honest truth is that I thought I would have a fourth boy and I was okay with that, and even excited about it.   I never know how to respond to them without sounding defensive, so I would just smile and say, "they are all so great!" or something equally lame.  But the comments, oy!

There is, however, one group of people who consistently made me feel amazing with their off-hand comments about my family.  I learned, after having Eleanor, in Asian cultures it is considered extremely auspicious to have three children of one gender and then one of the other gender.  Three and then one is considered very lucky.  And I am told this by almost every Asian person I have occasion to talk to.  Which is quite a few given we live in California, and I go to the commissary weekly where the baggers are almost exclusively Asian women.

What I love about the three and one idea is that it's not just the one girl that makes me fortunate.  The rest aren't discarded because I now have something new and different.  Rather, I had to have the three to make the one meaningful.  The three boys are what make the one girl special, and I have to have all four to receive the designation of "lucky".  While I don't believe in luck in the sense that these women often talk about it, the sentiment is so encouraging to me, and I hope, encouraging to my boys.  I don't want them to think that I just kept trying until I got a different flavor.  No, I am thankful for each and every one of them because they are human beings and I feel so blessed by God to have them written into my story.

I Forgot the Crock Pot

A few Sundays ago we were all getting ready to leave for church.  It was the usual chaos, goofing off, and yelling at kids which reminds me why I need to go to church in the first place.  I don't know if it is the recent addition of a fourth child or just my general absent mindedness which caused me to forget to start our normal crockpot meal for the potluck.  It is super easy (add chicken thighs, add bbq sauce, voila, bbq chicken), but I didn't start it before 9 a.m. which is essential because I don't want to give our entire congregation salmonella.

At any rate, I forgave myself this small mistake.  It would be okay, for one week, to not contribute to church lunch.  I have four kids.  I was trying to manage all of us out the door to be on time.  I am absent-minded, it's just who I am, I forget things and no one is going to give me a hard time about not bringing chicken for one week.  There will be plenty of food anyway.  I didn't even feel bad, really about forgetting.  It's just one of those things that happens.

Fast forward 10 minutes and I discover my sweet son playing with trains in his room, barefoot, tousled hair, and completely in his own world.  This was, of course, the exact moment we were supposed to be leaving for church.  He was supposed to be in his room getting his shoes and socks on.  He was supposed to be ready to go.  But, I forgave him this distraction.  I remembered he is my extra imaginative child who can make a story up out of any object he comes across.  I remembered he had already done so well getting his own breakfast and getting dressed for church.  I remembered he is six years old.

No, actually, I yelled.  I shrilly asked him what in the world he was doing and why wasn't he ready to go, we were going to be late and he didn't even have his socks out of the drawer and where were his shoes?!?  Yes, that is what I did.  There was no grace, no love, just sheer frustration and anger.  And later the questions in my own head of "oh my goodness, what am I teaching this child?"

I am working, by the grace of God, to be the mom that is slow to anger.  I am working on being the mom that isn't shocked when my kids disobey or sin (especially when I see my own attitudes thrown right back in my face!).  But I am far from there yet.  So, so far.  Sometimes it helps me to remember myself; I forgot the crock pot.

Why This Blog and Not My Old Blog

I'm not sure really, why I feel compelled to start a new blog.  Perhaps it's because when I started my old blog I was pregnant with my first child.  It turned into a chronicle of transition out of the military, into Navy Wife-dom, and perhaps most significantly, transformation into a mother.  I'm thankful I have it to look back on, but it seems like I'm in such a different place now.

I couldn't have imagined back then, even with all my ideals, that I would be the parent of the bunch I have now.  I couldn't have dreamt up Ethan, Matthew, Silas or Eleanor...even if I was a really good imagine-er.  I couldn't have fathomed what it would be like to grow each of them in my belly, to birth each of them into the world and then live thousands of days with them.  I couldn't have imagined these days where I am at once awed by their presence and still frustrated by their sheer neediness.  I couldn't have imagined, in my finite, tiny brain, having to research and explain both ziggurats and zeppelins on the very same day and somehow being exhausted by this research and explanation.  And yet, Someone knew this is exactly what would happen.  I like to tell my children about my life before them, and they will ask, "Mom, was I born yet when you did that?"  I tell them no, but they did exist, in the mind of the One who created them.  Before they were in my belly, they were in the mind of the Creator of the Universe.  Ending my stories that way always seems to satisfy them.

And so, I start with a fresh page, because I feel very much like the fresh page I started with in 2007 needs to be turned.