Goodbye to everything I thought I knew
Matthew 5:8
Good evening! I hope this finds you well. Thank you for reading this blog post. If you’re not currently subscribed, click the button below to receive my weekly reflections via email.
Some would call what happened this past week an ‘important milestone,’ but that implies something positive. My experience of this so-called ‘significant moment’ has been far from that!
My two-year-old son climbed out of his crib.
I will surely never forget the creaks of the stairs as Jonny slowly approached the living room, attempting to defeat bedtime. The feelings of ‘oh no!’ and ‘surely not!’ raced through my body and mind. How could this be?! Is this the end of my quiet evenings?!
I wasn’t exactly thrilled, and yet I was also somewhat shocked by his ability to do this all relatively quietly. After seeing him fling himself out of bed by smoothly climbing onto the side like it was a pommel horse, I have to admit I was impressed. In what now feels like a distant past, when I feared the moment Jonny got out of bed on his own, it was always with a bang and a bump and at least one injury. But no, Jonny did this all quite gracefully. Maybe gymnastics is in his future?! I joke now but it’s been a difficult few days. It’s surely a milestone but it’s one I wish would’ve come later.
I wonder though what I’m learning through all this chaos. It wasn’t until I sat down with my spiritual director earlier today that I realised how much had happened in the six weeks since I last spoke to her. Life is running 100 miles an hour. It has been for weeks, and the end is not quite in sight just yet. There’s still Easter and a trip to the US to conquer before I can truly exhale.
You don’t always have to learn in the moment, and I know I’m probably putting too much pressure on myself to figure out what God’s teaching me through all this. Yet, at the same time, I can feel growth stirring within me. The last few days have certainly driven me to breaking point but when I do catch a breath, I can see the ways I’m becoming a better parent. I’m more in tune with my son now than I’ve maybe ever been. And even though sometimes he drives me all the way up the wall and across the ceiling, I’ve also never loved him more.
When Jonny was born, I really struggled with my mental health, and one of those struggles was bonding with the little human before me. I didn’t know how to connect with him, and I beat myself up a lot for that. I felt a lot of guilt and a lot of shame. I thought I was a terrible mother because it didn’t all come naturally and because I wasn’t absolutely besotted with my son 24/7.
I still feel that guilt and that shame some days. It’s mainly when Jonny has a meltdown in public and I don’t know what to do, or when I see the judgment in someone’s face as I make a parenting decision they maybe themselves wouldn’t have made. I have to remind myself constantly that I am the world’s leading expert on this specific human. I spend the most time with him and experience all the highs and lows that come with that.
Despite knowing that, I still doubt myself all the time. Some of that is my natural disposition, but some of that is surely because Jonny is constantly growing and changing too. Every time I think I’ve got the hang of the parenting thing, Jonny goes and does something that throws everything I knew out the window!
Goodbye to everything I thought I knew.
Maybe that’s okay.
Matthew 5:8
I am an external processor. Even if the only listener I have is a blank Word document or an empty page in my journal, I need to get all my feelings out. I simply can’t work everything out in my head.
One of the issues with Jonny being able to fling himself out of bed whenever he likes is that my precious writing time is now interrupted, disjointed, and anything but peaceful. It’s only now that this time has been taken away that I realise just how crucial it is, both for me and everyone else by extension. Getting my feelings out helps me release all the things that taint my thoughts and shroud my heart. I’m a much nicer person once I’ve had the opportunity to process whatever I’ve been dealing with.
As I write, I’m wondering (as I usually do) if this experience is linked to today’s passage from Matthew’s gospel. Matthew 5:8 says this:
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
For a substance to be considered pure, it cannot be mixed with anything else. And so, if we apply that same definition to this verse, to be ‘pure’ means our hearts cannot be in two places. This goes in line with a lot of Jesus’ teachings about discipleship. In Matthew 6:24, he says that “you cannot serve both God and money.” It’s not that Jesus is being particularly harsh here. It’s a simple fact. To be able to wholly follow Jesus, we cannot have contradictory desires competing for our hearts. It just doesn’t work.
I have a lot of big feelings and I don’t think that’s a bad thing! But if they go unchecked, they can start to cloud my vision. It makes it impossible to see God because there’s too much stuff in the way.
I don’t know yet how I’m going to find time to clear my head (and heart!) but I hope I can find ways to see God while I work it out.
I hope this was helpful, or at least provoked some interesting thoughts. Please feel free to send it along to someone and encourage them today.
With much love and gratitude,
Stephanie