Affirmation

Affirmation, on the one hand, feels like a really namby-pamby, soft, needy word. On the other hand, my experience is that it can be a razor sharp blade that frees someone to be more of who they were made to be.

My deepest hurt, I've realized, about our current church is the lack of affirmation and the constant, relentless message that we are not doing enough, not doing what we are supposed to be doing. I've been grappling with this for some months now, and it feels good to be able to identify the pain, but also stunning to see it in black and white. Partly because the problem seems abusive. The beatings will continue until morale improves. But mostly because I believe in the vision and mission of the church and was so encouraged to find a community with such a heart. Additionally, I believe we are doing what we are supposed to be doing. I believe that we could, we should be affirmed.

To be honest, I don't know what to do about this. No community is perfect; I don't think we're looking for that. But I feel we are being ground under and I don't know what it would take to live free.

Redefining what counts

It's disorienting to be in new spaces; moving to a new place, moving to a new job, moving to a new stage in life. Having done all of those in the past 2 years, I've had a lot of time to be disoriented and to think about it.

A friend recently moved from East Africa to the States and discovered that her expert malaria-prevention skills are useless, kind of like my parallel-parking skills and my turning-left-on-red skills. Instead I've been boning up my navigating-the-medical-industrial-complex skills and taking-the-kid-to-preschool skills.

My sister-in-law is a newly minted mom and bemoans her days of "getting nothing done." Actually she and all moms do a lot, just none of it counts. It's a particularly hard adjustment if your previous life had easily identifiable to-do lists. She's a pharmacist and there are obvious pharmacist things to do and patients to not kill. I was a teacher and grad student. I had specific hoops to jump, lessons to deliver, and papers to grade.

The new mommy check list is woefully short: Keep baby alive and clean. When possible, rest and feed yourself. So I was very encouraged to read the exhortation to find "quiet ways to love and serve others without applause" That really sums up new motherhood, particularly for stay-at-home moms. There is tragically little applause and lots of demands.

However, the more I walk this Jesus journey the more I think this is the call to all Jesus followers. Flash and bang, shock and awe should be the exception not the rule. This is something I so value in my husband, his faithfulness in the ordinary. Actually, it can be irritating because his service can appear to be inflexible habit, but he's so consistent about it; doing the dishes, taking out the trash, closing up the house for the night, tending to our electronics, tending to the church electronics, tending to the neighbors' electronics and so forth.

My bent is to think that things you could proudly tell a stranger are the things that count; publications, projects, travels, etc. Changing diapers, burping babies, taking out trash, and fixing computers are not things you would discuss and do not count. And that's crap. All those hidden hours of love and service count, and they count in the eyes of the one who matters most, our Creator.

No regrets, you have been worth it

Dear Children,

I have been fairly public about this process of transitioning into motherhood. It's taken me a lot longer in my head to become a mother than it took for me to biologically become one. A big part of the process has been grieving the loss of my previous life and a change in my perspective and understanding of how my time should be spent. I think it's been important to document this journey because 1) there's this belief out there that becoming a mom is this easy, breezy, feel-good thing for everyone, and 2) there are two camps of thought on women and working. Some think work and children coexist well, and some thing work and children cannot coexist. Whichever way it is, there's an emotional cost that must be paid. These are the things I'm trying to document.

I worry, however, that you may believe that I regret your existence. Don't do that; you would be believing a lie. You won't remember these early years together, but let me tell you that I have not covered myself in glory. I have been selfish; I have been removed; I have been uninterested. But slowly, slowly, slowly, by the loving grace of God, with every nursing, every hug, every diaper, every song and every giggle, I am becoming less selfish, more connected, more attentive. You are already an irreplaceable part of my life.

I have deeply grieved the loss of opportunity to pursue a tenure-track professorship. You may be tempted to think that I would have rather taken that path. Even though I grieve that loss, I count it a privilege to be with you made possible because your father can support us on his own. It is precisely because you are so precious that I willingly give up something that I value dearly.

I have no regrets about these past two and a half years with you, L and half a year with you, DW. You each have been supremely worth it.

I love you both,

Mom

When you feel you don't fit in

Dear Children,

While it is on my mind, I thought I would address something I hope you will not have to encounter for another decade. I think most people at some point in their life feel they do not fit in. By virtue of your family history, you will actually not fit in. While there are more and more families with parents of different ethnicities, most of your classmates will not be in this situation. Certainly, we as your parents were not. But we both did grow up in a home culture that was different from the surrounding culture. And it is from that experience that I want to offer two truths that can be lifelines as you navigate these tricky waters for yourself.

1) God did not make a mistake when he made you.
2) You have an invitation to belong to God's household.

God did not make a mistake when he made you
As a young person, I often felt like a cosmic oops, that God had been distracted when he made me and that's how I ended up being a girl born to Chinese parents in the American South. Like wouldn't it have been easier if I had been born Chinese in China or White in America? Growing up, in the US I was never American enough, and in Chinese countries, I was never Chinese enough. You may feel similarly.

But something that helped me a lot was a chapel when I was in 6th grade where the speaker said, "God does not make mistakes." I don't remember the verse she was speaking on, but here is one to offer you food for thought:

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
~Psalm 139

The image here is one of God taking great care in crafting a life. God picked out your eye color, hair, nose, and mouth. And he built them on the genetic differences between Asians and Caucasians. Likewise, he knew you would have a particular cultural environment and has plans for that. Your ethnic background is not a cosmic mistake.

You have an invitation to belong to God's household
In your everyday life, you may feel like you don't fit in, you may be told you don't fit in, and you may actually not fit in. That's an awful feeling, I know. But this verse was huge for me when I was processing all of this. Listen to this:

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household,
~Paul's letter to the Ephesians

When you accept that Jesus's death and resurrection was for your sin too, you get a new citizenship and a new family. The spiritual reality is that God sweeps you into his family and loves you perfectly just as he made you. You have a place to belong. And this is true even if there are people actively telling you that you don't belong. And this is true even if the people telling you you don't belong are people who say they are Christ followers.

Now, I hope that you have a few friends who are also hapa. That y'all laugh about the weird, awkward things that come with it. And I hope you have Uncle Jonny and Uncle Kevin around to show you the ropes. But iffn you don't, I think these truths can carry you a long way.

I love you,
Mom

Between a rock and a hard place

"Being a mother is hard."

I remember thinking that before I became a mother from watching my friends around me have children. I think mostly the issue was that they were enormous and pondering before they disappeared for a couple months and when they reappeared they looked tired.

"Being a mother is hard."

I feel this now as a mother. The first couple months, it was probably mostly the tired thing that came from frequent feedings around the clock and painfully engorged breasts. But that phase is a distant memory. L sleeps relatively well, and I now get to sleep through most of the night. Feedings are a breeze, both solids and nursing. What's hard is that I feel torn between attending to her and my work.

The trick is that I feel like I shouldn't feel that being a mother is hard because the physical stuff isn't hard anymore. Yea, I have to attend to L's physical needs: food, clean diapers, warm clothes, a safe place to sleep, but really it's her emotional needs of wanting attention and affection that tear at me. I'd rather be writing or reading. Can't she just sit with me and let me do that? We'd still be together, you know?

This past week my husband and I read through the end of the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus talks about the signs of his second coming and the end of the age. And here (Matthew 24), he talks about how at that end time those who are in Judea flee to the mountains… and in that fleeing How dreadful it will be in those days for pregnant women and nursing mothers!…For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now… In all the dreadfulness, pregnant women and nursing mothers are the only named category of people; they are singled out for particular difficulty. That has always struck me as kind of unfair, but this week, I agree.

Pregnant women and nursing mothers not only must keep themselves alive but also are the literal lifeline for their child. You might think that nursing mothers are a somewhat different case than pregnant women but their children also depend on them and not just for physical but also emotional care. Children can nurse into toddlerhood even after they can eat solid foods which suggests to me that their nursing isn't just for physical sustenance but also emotional connection. Reports from orphanages where children were fed but not tended to help us see how important emotional care is for proper development and survival.

Looking at this passage, why are pregnant women and nursing mothers in desperate straights in times of trouble? Because they cannot be substituted for. No matter the upheaval in the world around, no matter how desperate the fleeing, that mother has to care for that child or the child is not likely to survive.

For moms and probably new moms in particular, it is easy to feel a lot of guilt and then to feel guilt for feeling guilt. This text helps me to realize, new motherhood is hard. Not that new motherhood is insurmountably hard and for most of us, it'll never be fleeing from destruction hard. It's a special kind of, special stage of hard. I don't need to beat myself up for not feeling like this is smooth sailing even though I've had great support from family and friends and I get to work at home. And I can remind myself that eventually, I won't be a nursing mother and I'll be out of that special category.

--
This post is part of an ongoing series I am writing along with the author of On Expecting