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I asked for a small thing.
It wasn’t much, and I didn’t deserve it. But I asked all the same.
It was a short list, a prayer I prayed before Pilates each morning or while making toast in the afternoon. A breath prayer, you could call it: Please Lord, let it be cool weather after the baby is born.
![Ascetic Motherhood & Why Hard is Not More Holy [The Women’s Issues Series]](https://phyliciamasonheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/bethany-beck-82NHIKIvKNc-unsplash-1080x675.jpg)
While hard things do come with motherhood, and hard is not bad, neither are we permitted to make new laws out of personal choices. If we make personal motherhood choices that limit our freedom and result in more difficulty than the choices another mom makes, that is not a higher and holier road. It’s simply a freedom issue.
Every pregnancy the Lord permits a particular challenge to enter my life. This one was no different. With Addie, we moved to a new state at 37 weeks along. With Eva, Josh lost his job when I was 7 months pregnant. And with Van, Josh resigned his job, unwillingly and due to difficult circumstances, three months before I was due. Having been through major life events during pregnancy three times, I can only believe God uses a season which can be incredibly anxiety-inducing on its own to further increase my dependence on Him. And while I wouldn’t choose the difficulty we’ve faced during pregnancy, I can say that incredible sweetness has come out of it as well.
![Reframing Pregnancy and Birth [The Women’s Issues Series]](https://phyliciamasonheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/anna-hecker-wqcQ6ODwPxU-unsplash-1080x675.jpg)
In this episode of Verity Podcast, we begin a new season! Each episode dives into a separate women’s issue and how the gospel addresses it. Pregnancy and birth are discussed at length here on the blog, and this episode outlines some of the most important points I’ve covered in posts.
We’re Christians. We believe the message that it’s not by works of righteousness, but according to his mercy he has saved us, and we’ll all say amen to that. However, I know that I’m not the only one that’s bought into the lie that I have to parent by a certain method in order to get the right results in my kids.
We are in that awkward stage of marriage where the holidays are no longer the “free and easy” of our dating days, when events could be attended without coordinating a babysitter. But we’re not quite to the stage of parenting where our girls can really engage with the holiday, either. But I don’t want to wait until our girls are older to start making family traditions and enjoying the Christmas season.
As a Bible teacher, the most important (and often overlooked) place I need to teach the bible is in my own home. While there are a lot of resources for teaching the bible to older children, there aren’t quite as many when your kids are young. Adeline just turned three and Geneva turns one in a month, so their understanding of the Bible is naturally quite limited.
“Just wait until you have two,” She laughed. “One is a vacation.” As a new mom, I was the object of much unnecessary, negative input regarding my solitary offspring. Once I had two – I was told – life would fall apart and all semblance of routine would go down with it.
Perhaps it’s my personality, but when someone tells me something is impossible, my first inclination is to prove them wrong. But really, it’s not even about them: I want to prove to myself that it’s possible to enjoy motherhood, enjoy my kids, and enjoy life – all at the same time.
I’m going out on a limb talking about this; a limb the mommy wars might saw off at any moment, and I’ll go tumbling to an untimely internet death.
But this message is worth the fall, if I take it. Because I’m really over the assumptions we’re making – these assumptions we women make about each other.
I’m reading the bible chronologically this year. Every morning finds my clunky, awkward journaling bible propped halfway between an armchair and an endtable, coffee spilling with each elbow bump as I turn pages with one hand and hold my nursing baby with the other. Sometimes my eyes are so heavy I can’t remember which part of the Tabernacle I was reading about two minutes before. Sometimes I re-read a passage three times as my two-year-old interrupts with tears or toys.