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He is Our Brave

September 10, 2014 by Ann 6 Comments

I do not think of myself as a naturally brave person. I’ve never been bungee jumping or sky diving—and I have zero desire to do so. I like knowing what’s coming at me, and I prefer having a life that’s fairly scheduled. I’m not a big fan of change. I’ve never done anything particularly heroic or courageous that anyone else would have noticed.

But in this past week, I have been drawn to this song, entitled “You Make Me Brave.” Here are some of the lyrics:

As Your love,
in wave after wave 
Crashes over me,
crashes over me 
For You are for us 
You are not against us 
Champion of Heaven 
You made a way for all to enter in

I have heard You call my name
 I have heard the song of love that You sing 
So I will let You draw me out beyond the shore 
Into Your grace 
Into Your grace

You make me brave 
You make me brave 
You call me out beyond the shore into the waves 
You make me brave 
You make me brave 
No fear can hinder now the love that made a way

Those words remind me of the words of the One who called Joshua to be “strong and courageous” (Joshua 1:9), the words of the One who says that His “perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18) and the One whose words tell me that I am like the matriarch Sarah, if I “do good and do not fear anything that is frightening” (1 Peter 3:6). So much of Scripture is filled with the call to let go of fear and to grasp onto the love of God—the only unfailing love that fills us with courage even as He calls us into new and challenging things.

And as I’ve been thinking about bravery, I feel like God has gently shown me that I have been brave during this last year. Not in ways that anyone else would notice—I have not run into any burning houses or jumped from any helicopters. But I have realized that these last fifteen months of my life—becoming a mama—have required me to be braver than I ever thought I could be. I’ve written before, but the transition into motherhood wasn’t easy for me. I had no idea how it would change everything in my life all at once–and remember, change isn’t easy for me. But, the love of God upheld me. And mothering Ella is simultaneously the most wonderful and the most crazy thing I’ve ever done.

Every day I realize, afresh, that no one else can be her mother. And that requires great bravery from me—to keep saying yes.

Every day, even when I feel like I have very little in my own tank, I say yes to Jesus. And He—He is the one who makes me brave. He is the one who enables me to say yes again to the responsibility and yes to the joy and yes to the exhaustion and yes to the love and yes to the consistency and yes to the laughter and yes to the constant reality is life as a mom. It is costing much of me to be a present, loving mother. I wouldn’t have it any other way. But some days, it is a brave choice for me to show up and love and serve and giggle and clothe and bathe and feed again, one day at a time.

So, to my fellow mamas: you might not be saving the world today, but you are brave. You are raising and loving and serving a little life—or several little lives—and Jesus knows the bravery that requires. He knows the cost. What may not look like much to the outside world—making meals, wiping bottoms, changing clothes, cleaning up Cheerios—looks like bravery from Heaven’s perspective. You are brave for showing up again today, for not pulling your heart out of this beautiful and costly work of mothering. You can be strong and courageous, and you can let His love cast out your fear—because Christ is with you and in you.

He is our brave.

Filed Under: About, Baby, God, Life, Parenting, Uncategorized Tagged With: baby, be you bravely, bethel music, brave, Christianity, faith, Jesus, keep your heart alive, mom, motherhood, newborn, saying yes, you make me brave

The Weightiness of Her Life

July 2, 2014 by Ann 12 Comments

One year ago today, I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it. Practically, yes, I knew I would live. But emotionally, I wasn’t sure how to keep moving forward. Ella was just six weeks old, and I had never known a love as fierce and all-consuming as the love I had for her. But I was also exhausted, and feeling unsteady. We had ventured into this thing called parenting with our eyes as wide open as we thought we could get them: our best friends had kids, and I’d helped Robyn clean up poop and puke more than once. We had been married for seven years, had already changed jobs several times: we knew one another well as spouses. We had the money saved up that we needed for Ella’s birth and medical care. We had been praying about starting a family for years, and I had been praying for my children since I was a child myself.

What, then, was my problem? Why did I feel scared and unsure? Why, when I looked at my daughter, did I both want to melt into a pool of grateful tears and also curl up into the fetal position she had just so recently left?

Well, the lack of sleep was one thing. One huge thing. I had not gotten more than three hours of sleep strung together for those six weeks, and I was tired. Really, really tired. Every new mom knows this, but there is a special kind of exhaustion that those newborn days bring. I’d heard about it, but it’s different to experience that kind of bone-tiredness, and I was not functioning well without sleep.

The hormones were another thing. I knew I had hormones prior to getting pregnant and giving birth, but wow. Wow. The high of having a child had definitely petered out by week six for me, and now I just felt overwhelmed. I felt overwhelmed by her need for me—I had never felt so tethered to another life.

And that weightiness of caring for another life—not one buoyed up in my womb, encased in layers of water and flesh—but here, awake, pink and crying—this felt important. It felt heavy. At times, the weight of her life and my weakness felt too heavy to bear.

I remember crying, and I remember asking Michael if life would ever be the same again. How could he answer? Well, of course not. We had a child. We were now parents. Our lives were unendingly altered. But yes, we would sleep again. And yes, we would gain our sea legs in this vast ocean of parenting. Just not right away. Not right now.

So I had two goals every day: keep Ella alive, and keep myself alive. Ella’s needs, although high, were straightforward—milk, sleep, touch. For me to stay alive was very different. I needed food yes, and I desperately needed sleep. Friends brought meals and family watched Ella while I napped. But I needed hope—and for me that meant getting time with God every day, even when it felt impossible to do anything. I have had friends who also needed medication and counseling, and although I did not need those things after Ella’s birth I am grateful they are available if I ever do. But my first lifeline in those early weeks was getting daily time with God. It often took me until five pm to get even twenty minutes with the Lord, reading the word, journaling my prayers through tears or through drooping eyelids. Sometimes I just turned on worship music and sang along; sometimes I immersed myself in the words of Scripture, hungry for something stable and sure in my life, which seemed unendingly new. Sometimes I just sat and wept, out of gratefulness or out of fear.

And for me, steadily, those feelings of being overwhelmed started to lift. God spoke to my heart that it was not my responsibility to carry the weight of Ella’s life–that was his responsibility. Just as I had not created Ella, I could not sustain her. Her life belonged to him; my call was to love her and delight in her, not carry her life as a burden I could not possibly bear. And I was able to hand to God the things that scared me and the things that I felt unable to hold–I gave Ella back to him, just as she has always been his. I told him, again, that I trusted him with her life. And along with the babysitting from family and the meals from friends and the conversations with my husband, I met God in a new way in that release. He carried me, and he showed me that he was the one carrying Ella.

The Weightiness of Her Life Share on X

Much can change in a year. I have had calendar years in my life where very little changed externally—this was not one of those years. I would not change this last year for anything, but I am also thankful that time does not go back. I am thankful that I have needed to continue to learn that the Lord is the sustainer of Ella’s life. I am called to give my life in many ways so that she might thrive and so that she might love Jesus. But he has already given all of his life for her. I can trust her Maker and mine with this child I was blessed to carry and that I now get to raise. Ella is a gift. Her life is weighty, yes, because she is of eternal value and worth. But I am not her maker. I am not her sustainer. I am her mother. There is a difference.

For me, that difference has been very, very freeing.

So has the increased amount of sleep. That’s helped a lot, too.

This is a #WritingWednesdays post. Think back to a year ago today and write about how you have changed since then.

Filed Under: Baby, God, Life, Writing Wednesdays Tagged With: baby, baby blues, being a mom is hard, burden, Christianity, does being a mom get easier, exhausted mom, faith, feeling unsteady, first six weeks, heaviness, hope, I'm so tired, Jesus, love, motherhood, new mom, newborn, tired mom, unsure about being a new mother, weightiness, why is being a mom so difficult

The Cost of Marriage

December 7, 2013 by Ann 4 Comments

[Link to the full article here at Today’s Christian Woman!, where it was originally published.]

Michael was in the driver’s seat and I was holding a string of ultrasound photos: glossy, black-and-white images that gave us glimpses of our first child. Moments before, we had been in the dark room where the technician had asked us if we wanted to know if I was carrying a boy or a girl. Yes, we wanted to know.

A girl, the technician had told us. We were having a girl.

Now, driving in the car, we said her name over and over to each other. This was Ella, hiding away in my belly. This was Ella, her name no longer an option on a list but a person joining our family. A baby. A girl. Our girl. Ella.

I looked up from the photos as we drove down the four-lane road. We were heading to our favorite restaurant to celebrate, and as I looked up, I saw Michael’s eyes softened with tears. “Someday,” he said, “I will walk her down the aisle and give her away.”

Now, eight months after staring at those ultrasound photos, and three months after her birth, I often look at Ella’s face and try to imagine what she will look like in 5 years, in 10 years, in 20 years. Today her tiny, rounded nose and full cheeks beg for kisses. Her eyes are more blue than the grey they reflected in the hospital, just 14 weeks ago. Her mouth, always moving, always sucking, and–more and more–smiling back at us, is small and pink. She is sill more baby than girl.

I wonder still, as I did during all the months of pregnancy, who this child is, what she will be like, who she will love. She is still a mystery even though she is in my arms, and I pray that we have many years to learn each other as she grows up.

As I pray for her now, I pray similar prayers to the ones I have been praying for years—prayers that I prayed before we knew she was a girl, prayers that I prayed before we knew I was pregnant, prayers that I prayed even before I was married, before I went to college. I have been praying for Ella for years, when she was only a foggy idea of a child that I might one day have. I have prayed for her salvation and her relationship with God; I have prayed for her relationship with us, her parents; and I have prayed for her spouse.

I have prayed—and continue to pray—for her spouse because I know that if she does choose to marry someday, that marriage relationship will shape her deeply and profoundly.

In my own life, the decision to marry Michael was the second most formative decision I have ever made. Choosing to follow Christ was the most important decision. As the Lord, Christ requires all my heart, soul, mind, and strength. Michael, as my husband, is not the one I worship, but if I am loving him rightly—as the second but most important earthly love I have—then marriage requires many of the same things of me—heart, soul, mind, and strength. I know, should Ella marry, that who she marries will shape her more deeply than any other human relationship. So I pray for her husband.

I cannot imagine him any more than I could imagine Ella a year ago. He is no more real to me than the idea of my future husband was when I was 12 years old. I remember praying for my husband then, knowing that one day I hoped to marry, although it seemed a distant possibility. I prayed simple prayers, prayers that my future husband would love God and love me, and that I would meet him when the time was right. It was all I knew to pray. When Michael and I married in our twenties, I had the realization that I had been praying for Michael for a decade, although I had known him for less than two years.

And for the last seven years, our marriage has been wonderful and challenging and funny and hard, as most marriages are. We are both people, woven together by vows and prayers, but neither of us is perfect, or even perfect for each other. There is only one who is truly perfect for both of us, and that Bridegroom will come for us eventually. But here, today, and over these years, we are making a marriage together, full of triumphs and failures. Even my 10 years of praying before marriage, and my seven years of praying in marriage, cannot make either of us perfect. God has answered many of my prayers, to be sure, but this side of heaven neither of us will be fully whole. And so our marriage, lovely as it is, has weaknesses and faults.

And this is why I pray for Ella’s husband, too. If Ella follows in my footsteps, then her husband is not even born yet (Michael is two years younger than I am). But although I cannot imagine him, although he may not even yet be a cluster of cells, I pray for him. Because I know that if Ella does marry some day, that man will mold her soul in ways even deeper than I, the one who carried her inside myself, ever will.

And so I pray. I pray for his salvation and relationship with the Lord. I pray for his parents, most likely my peers, people I could be working with, people I could be passing by on the street. I pray that they will raise him in a God-fearing, loving home. I pray that he and Ella will both stay physically and emotionally pure until marriage, and that they will continue another generation of men and women who love Jesus.

And sometimes, when I look into her tiny face, I know that even with all my prayers, if she marries anyone, she will still marry a man with faults and foibles and failures that will hurt her. My prayers as a mother, even prayers piled year upon year, day after day, cannot protect her from the reality of marrying a human being. Marriage is full of pain and sacrifice, just as it is full of love and contentment. All my praying cannot protect her from that.

Marriage is full of pain and sacrifice, just as it is full of love and contentment. Share on X

The Altar and the Cost of Marriage

And in truth, I do not want her to be able to sidestep the sacrifice that marriage requires. It is a refining tool in God’s hand, a way that he shapes us to look more like Jesus if we respond to him. If Ella chooses to marry, in one sense she will choose a person, and in another sense she will choose a way of life. For when we yoke ourselves to another human, we cannot wander the field of life in our own direction. We must fall in step with someone else, and sometimes it is hard to walk so closely with another soul. Sometimes the load shifts to our shoulders more heavily than it ought to, and sometimes the load shifts to our spouse. The give and take of marriage has never been for the faint of heart. It will cost Ella her life if she chooses it.

I think that is why marriage vows are spoken in front of the altar. The altar was a place of death and sacrifice in the Old Testament. Marriage involves much of the same; self-death, self-sacrifice. But for God’s people, the altar also symbolized hope and right relationship with God. Through death was a chance for life. The altar, and the sacrifices offered upon it, became the pre-cursor to the gospel and the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. He became the perfect sacrifice, offered once and completely, securing the way for God’s people to have right relationship with him—the chance for God’s people to have true, abundant life. Marriage is meant to show the world a picture of this gospel: the Apostle Paul connects the reality of marriage to the relationship between “Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:32). There is sacrifice involved. There is a deep cost.

The Ultimate Bridegroom

When I pray for Ella and for her future spouse, I do not often dwell on the thought of marriage as her choice of going to the altar to die to herself, while her husband does the same. But in many ways, that is what marriage is meant to be—laying down your life for the life of another. And I know that if Ella does marry—if this is part of her story on this earth—than it matters deeply who she marries. I want him to be a wonderful man, full of God’s love and unwaveringly faithful to her in every way. But I know that he will not be perfect. And that is a good thing. It is good that her husband will not be perfect, will not meet all her needs, and will not make her ultimately happy. If she opens herself to the fullness of loving another person in marriage, she will, at some point, experience the ache of realizing that he is just another broken human being, prone to consider himself above her and her needs. But through that aching, through that realization, the idol of marriage can be broken and another love must triumph. That love is Christ himself, the ultimate bridegroom and caretaker of our souls.

And that is always my first prayer for my daughter—that she will love and follow Christ. A close second is that prayer for her spouse, that she will marry a man whose partnership shows her more fully the glory of Christ, and whose love toward her reflects the love of Christ.

If there does come a day when my husband walks Ella down the aisle to a man who will promise her his love and faithfulness, I will be able to tell him that I have been praying for him longer than he has been alive. I never pray that he will be perfect. But I do pray that their marriage will lead both of them more wholeheartedly to Jesus. This is, I think, the best prayer I can pray.

Read the article here, at Today’s Christian Woman.