Well, this isn’t where I thought this year would lead.
In some ways, I’m exactly where I’d hoped to be. I planned to loosen my grip on my writing and promotion of writing. I planned to say goodbye to social media entirely in 2018. I planned to begin a journey reading through my bible from Genesis to Revelation without stopping to study, just reading it as one larger story. All of those things have been accomplished (well, I’m not finished reading yet, but it’s going as planned.)
There are some other things, though, that I planned on that fell to the wayside. I planned to apply to graduate schools this fall- perfectly timed so that I’d complete a master’s degree and walk into the workforce the moment Miles could start kindergarten. I planned to finish losing the baby weight that Miles and post partum depression left me with. After finally completing my first three mile run in years, I planned to make my way toward another half marathon. I planned for us to finally come to a decision about a third baby.
Truthfully, in my heart, I wasn’t exactly leaning toward a third baby. It was easy to decide to have a second baby after an easy pregnancy and fairly easy first year with Norah (she didn’t sleep, but at least she was happy and easy otherwise). After Miles’ first year, the idea of a third baby has often brought me to tears. The risk of another round of postpartum depression, the risk of another traumatic delivery, the risk of another experience with colic and reflux and trouble breastfeeding— basically everything that can go wrong yet us both still technically be healthy— I just couldn’t bring myself to decide this would be best for us. I often prayed God would make the choice. I could tell Tyler leaned toward having another baby at some point, but I hadn’t quite explicitly expressed to him that I really wasn’t sure I could do it all again.
Two positive lines on a pregnancy test changed a lot of my plans for this year. It has stretched my heart. It’s a weird dichotomy to have such a hard time accepting a pregnancy I wasn’t planning on when just years ago, I had such a hard time accepting that our planned pregnancies wouldn’t pan out. I’ve felt guilt and shame over the dark feelings I’ve had regarding this pregnancy. But what I was really dealing with was grieving the loss of plans I’d made. They were good plans. They were things to better my life and my family. And just like my miscarriage stopped me and my good plans in our tracks, this baby has done the same. Like those miscarriages, she is coming with a basket of lessons to teach me.
It’s taken a very long time for my heart to have peace over this baby joining our family. I worry, and I worry, and I worry some more about what her birth will be like-after all I have experienced one flawless, peaceful birth and one tumultuous, traumatic birth. I worry about the transition time and if it will wreak havoc on our life like the last one did. I worry that I’ll suffer from postpartum mental illness again and how long it’ll take to recover this time. I feel so exposed to the what ifs that I honestly didn’t know about after having Norah. My heart found a home in some anger and turmoil as my body has not handled this pregnancy well and for awhile I kept repeating to myself that I did not ask for this.
I can’t help but thing he was preparing me for this, though.
I’ve spent the better part of this year focusing on God becoming my satisfaction, but there were parts of me that still wanted him to satisfy me in the ways I asked, not in how he saw best.
After much reflection, I now know that after gaining some traction with my writing, I began to find my satisfaction and fulfillment in attention for my writing. God showed me through a powerful Bible study last fall that I had become enthralled with writing about God rather than with God himself. Throughout several months to a year, I’d become so dissatisfied in my motherhood that I sought what I thought I was missing in other places. The internet, social media… it all “connects” us and offers us the attention we want. It’s free. It’s easy. Now, that’s textbook humanity. We seek for fulfillment and satisfaction from whatever is offered and we seek it from what is easy. We convince ourselves that because we are seeking it from things that aren’t necessarily bad that it makes it okay. God would want us to be happy, right? God would want us to seek joy and fulfillment from good things, right? Maybe on some levels. But above all, he wants us to want him. In the most dissatisfied moments of my life, he is the only thing that could possibly satisfy. Yet, I seek my joy from countless other things.
When I found myself unexpectedly upset over being given another gift of a baby, it took me months to see how God was preparing me to find satisfaction with him, not the size of our family or the good plans I’d already made. He always wants me to stop looking around and start looking up. The plans change, the seasons of life change (or stay the same when you want them to change like I did), we are given unexpected gifts or trials and sometimes we can’t tell the difference between the two. Yet, his constant love reminds us to stop looking around.
Eyes up.
I don’t know why I so desperately wanted a girl. Maybe it’s because I wanted Norah to get her wish of a baby sister (and possible I want Miles to be my only boy forever). Maybe it’s because I find floral prints much more appealing than boy designs. Maybe it’s because my girl baby was ten times easier than my boy baby (though, toddler years are opposite so I might be in for some trouble). But I wanted a girl. For the first time in my childbearing life, I knew this one was a girl. I would have been shocked had we received any other news in early October.
Deep down though, I think I wanted to know I was having a girl because I preferred our girl name. If we could use our girl name, I thought, there’d be an aspect of God in this that would bring me a little peace. I always thought if we had another girl, her name would be Audrey. I fell in love with it long ago and held on to it assuming we’d use it eventually. But in my quest to find my satisfaction in Christ alone, another name that happened to come on my radar (thank you, Lin-Manuel Miranda. I mean, for about a million reasons, but thank you for bringing my daughters name to my attention.)
In an effort to bring myself a little happiness after finding out I was pregnant earlier this year, I jokingly texted Tyler a list of names from the musical Hamilton (for some reason he was against the name Hercules and Mulligan). I expected a sarcastic comment or a simple no to all of them, but he actually responded that one of those names wasn’t too bad.
Then I researched it, realizing it’s meaning would be right up my alley on this theme of God and satisfaction.
Eliza means either oath of God, or God is satisfaction.
It was perfect. Timely. A divine appointment perhaps. So I clung to it. There was no hope of any other name for this darling baby girl after that. Through all my childbearing ups and downs, God has been leading me to find my satisfaction in him. Now with our third, assuming also it’s our final, baby I can give her the name that sums all of it up.
God is satisfaction.
My last post was one full of fear and worry about the health of our baby. The moment I heard that we are having a girl, peace fell upon me. My Eliza. My gift from God to always remind me that he is satisfaction. For the previous 20 weeks, I had experienced some anger, bitterness, stress, worry, and doubt about this baby God had decided we should have. In the moment of realizing this baby could bear the reminder of how satisfying God is, those feelings weren’t wiped away but I finally had the tool to oppose them.
It felt as though God had whispered to me in that moment: “I see you. I’ve got you. Look up, I am all you need.”
I’m not sure about you, but the world has left me utterly dissatisfied.
You might feel dissatisfied because your kids don’t fulfill you like you think they should. A relationship you wanted just isn’t what you thought. You though grandchildren would fill a void in your life. You thought a job would give you the meaning you wanted. Your loved one is making decisions that hurt and you feel you don’t deserve it. You thought money would fill those spots and make your life better. You thought physically healing would bring you the peace you so desperately wanted.
But you’re left dissatisfied and wondering when these things will change so that you feel fulfilled. But the truth is that these things will not fulfill you under any condition. No life changes are going to suddenly make you feel fully satisfied.
This struggle we feel isn’t meant to leave us hopeless or feel like God has forgotten us. This struggle is meant to point us to the only true void-filler. This struggle is meant for us to seek satisfaction with God, not anything man can or cannot do. This struggle is meant for us to find satisfaction in who God is and his unfailing love for us, not in the prayers he answers with a yes. Would an answered prayer feel good? Sure. But the truth is, it may only end up distracting you for a short time. Then we find ourselves dissatisfied once again.
So often, the struggle leaves us with a sour taste in our mouth regarding God but that taste is actually just thirst. It’s thirst for something better.
Earlier this year, I thought I’d pen an essay about how all of these good plans came to fruition. I thought I’d talk about how much I could accomplish in the absence of my social media presence. I thought I’d have a long list of accomplishments to show, like weight loss, miles run, and acceptance to graduate school. I thought I might be starting by journey out of the stay-at-home-mom years that I’ve found terrible difficult. I didn’t expect to write this long, maybe too detailed piece about how hard it has been to wrap my head around this pregnancy.
Though this path wasn’t explicitly chosen by me, I am thankful.
I am thankful for one thing above all and that is that God can teach me to long for him above all else even in my most dissatisfied moments. That when my plans began to fade away and all of those good things would no longer be able to be accomplished this year, he’d give me to gift of satisfaction in himself. No, Eliza won’t ever satisfy me, but with each time I say her name I will be declaring who can.
Come February, maybe March, when I get to meet my Eliza, I can hardly wait to tell her about who God is. I can hardly wait to sing his praise in her arrival. I can hardly wait to begin the journey of pointing to him when she is let down by this world.
Sweet girl, you are so loved, prayed for, and wanted. I will fail you, this world will fail you, but I’m thankful I’m the one who gets to show you the one who will not fail you.
Peace & Joy 