The Morning Joy

“The funeral home”

As strange as it is, that would be my answer if you were to ask me where I was when I knew that I was head over heels, unselfishly crazy… about you. 

It was one of the worst days of your life. Every part of your body looked exhausted. Whether that was because of the amount of tears you had cried since your step-father’s passing or because you hadn’t slept in three days or some cruel combination of both, I do not know. But, I do know your eyes were longing for quiet. For calm. For normal. The normal you would never have again. 

I watched you go through the motions. “Thank you for coming” “I’m doing alright” “He was such a great man” “I appreciate your prayers” I watched as each word became less and less sincere. I watched as you held your sister in your arms and let her tears stain your rented tuxedo. I watched as you held back your own. 

I watched you rise from your seat and walk out of the room, I watched you walk out of site to the most hidden room you could find. And although I did not watch you break, although I did not hear the pieces of your soul shatter, I knew you had lost it. 

And that was when I knew. 
In that moment, I wanted nothing in return. I wanted nothing back from you. I simply wanted to wrap my arms around you and I wanted that to make everything disappear. I wanted to give you my heart and take your breaking one as far away from you as I could. I longed so deeply to dawn the pain that you were so undeservingly carrying. I wanted to make it all stop for you. Make the world go back to the way you colored it as a child. I wanted to make the sun rise again in your eyes the way it always had.

I would have done anything to make you stop hurting. I wouldn’t have minded picking up the pieces of your heart and soul and putting them back together with my own hands. I wouldn’t have cared if it had scarred my hands. My pain in exchange for yours. I would have done it. I would have done it. 

I held my breath until you re-entered the room with swollen eyes and a clenched jaw of anger. Even then, you stole my breath. I wanted you to know how much I would have given to make it all better. But I just sat, saying silent prayer after silent prayer. 

Give me his pain, Lord, give it to me. He doesn’t deserve it. Heal him. Heal him. Catch his tears. Catch the ones I can’t. 

And in this awful, draining, painful moment… I just knew. 

I knew that I cared about you differently than I cared about anyone else in that room.

And every room since. 

I pray that you are strong enough to know that you do not need to fear the darkness

for without it, you could not shine

Do not long for the light, be the light

I have ardently attempted to put these feelings into words. I have tried and tried again to formulate sentences that would do justice to how my heart feels like it is exploding the way it was meant to. I long so deeply  to remember this feeling of how being on fire has never felt so good. But, after all of the hours of trying and trying again to write these feelings down it has occurred to me that I do not need words to remember these feelings.

I only need you.

Never, have I told anyone this before.

“I mean, sure, I dream of a little white house on the corner, maybe having a few dogs or cats, a nice lawn and a cute porch. And of course I’d love to get married, but, there is no way any children are fitting into that equation”

Growing up I never thought much about having or raising kids. Until, my dad left and I began to wonder what kind of father could leave his children. I began to ponder deep things as a child like if the love of a father to his daughter was any deeper than the love of anyone else to anyone else. I couldn’t understand why someone who was genetically programmed to love you could simply choose to stop. I stopped seeing the point in a “family” when, basing things off what I had experienced, it was all going to fall apart anyway. I just figured it made more sense to not have kids, because that way when you stopped loving that person, or vice versa, you could just divide the things and move on without having other human beings to worry about or apologize to. 

I also never really had the “maternal instinct” that it seemed every other woman in my life had. I never knew what to do when an infant started crying and it took me forever to change a diaper. I always had dolls but I never had too strong of an attachment to them. My sister used to carry around anything she could find that would fit in her little arms and pretend it was her baby. She knew she wanted to be a mom from the time she was 6. I thought that I just had been programmed wrong or had a defect because to me, being a mom meant the constant pressure of failing everyone that loved me most. And, if I’m being honest: being a mom meant being alone, abandoned and hurt. And I didn’t want any part in that.

I just decided that motherhood wasn’t for me. Simple as that.

I then entered a relationship as a teenager that depleted any sense of self-worth my father had accidentally left me with. Comments were made that I will never forget. Things such as: “You’d fail at motherhood anyway” and “Like Father like daughter” and other hurtful words along those lines. And although they were just small comments from a stupid teenage guy, they took such deep root in my heart and have continued to grow and blossom since, destroying my view of myself as a woman from the inside, out. Throughout my teenage years, comments were made from nearly everyone in my life regarding how uncomfortable I was with young babies. People I loved the most joked about my lack of skill with children, making me avoid interacting with any child at all cost. Things that were said so light heartedly could completely ruin my day.

My mindset had been changed from: “I don’t want to be a mother” to “I couldn’t be a mother, anyway”

After this draining relationship ended, I found out I had a cyst on my right ovary, which caused a lot of pain. I went on birth control to prevent any more cysts from forming and to take care of the one that already had. Obviously, you are not likely to get pregnant on birth control, which wasn’t a problem for me then, or even now. Because I wasn’t trying to get pregnant. But, my mother questioned the doctor, “What will we do if she ever decides to have kids?” Because if I went off of birth control, the cyst would form again, causing a high level of pain, but if I didn’t go off the pill, I couldn’t conceive.  Also, these cyst can come with extra baggage that makes it more difficult to conceive a child. The doctor just looked at me with a sad expression and said, “We’ll just have to cross that bridge when we get there,” as if he was unsure as to exactly what we would do. Even though he didn’t actually say “I don’t know if you’ll ever be able to conceive children,” the thought still crossed my mind. It bothered me for weeks after. Every time I took a birth control pill I was reminded of the possibility of not being able to have my own children and it broke my heart. I was absolutely perplexed as to why this even bothered me, because I thought I was so set on not having any children, anyway. 

I am glad to report now I have been off birth control for over a year now and I am healthy and will have no problems, that I am aware of, conceiving a child of my own. Although not trying for any babies just yet. ;)

But, that moment at the doctor’s office stays with me. The pure panic that pulsed through my heart. Its like the doctor was stripping away the lives of these children that I didn’t even know I had dreamed up and there was not an ounce of my being that was okay with that. Why did I feel that?

Everyone thinks its strange when I say that I don’t want kids. Even in today’s society with the empowerment of woman at an all time high, people still look at me perplexed and in disbelief. I found the shock of people empowering at first. Like I was independent and I didn’t need to change that. 

THAT WAS ALL BEFORE I WAS STANDING AT MY BATHROOM MIRROR 
I was innocently wondering why some people wanted kids and others didn’t. And I felt like the Lord hit me like a ton of bricks, in the most loving way a ton of bricks can hit someone, of course. While there are some people who just do not want kids, the Lord  was telling me I was not one of them. That I had been walking in a lie. That it was fear that stopped my yearning for a family. Even now as I type this all out it is becoming so apparent to me. Deep inside I yearn to be loved and to love as deeply as only a family can. But, I have always feared that whenever I have a man’s child he would somehow lose his love for me, because he now had to put time and attention into our child. I always knew it was warped but I couldn’t shake it. And the Lord is just pouring over me, “No, Daughter, that is not how that works.”

I must come to the realization that the things spoken over me, the lies that I have believed, the fears that I have worn around all of these years are not the things the Lord has given me. He has given me a spirit of freedom and love and longing. Longing for a family of my own that will not decimate before my eyes. My family does not have to fall into the fate of so many other’s that I have known: heart ache, divorce, abuse, molestation, adultery. My family does not have to end in despair because my family does not have to end!

I had not even seen or realized the lies I had been believing my entire life:
that a man could not stay faithful to his wife- FALSE
that a man could love his children and NOT abandon them- FALSE
that I would not be qualified to be a mother- FALSE

I am just smiling through the tears that I feel coming, because of how absolutely beautiful this truth is. Its like water drenching the innermost being of my soul. 

While, I still do not know whether it is in God’s will for my life for me to have children of my own or adopt or do both or to never have any children at all.
I do know that I would be a good mother and an absolutely stellar wife, because the Lord is on my side and created a loving and caring and genuine heart that is beating inside of my chest. Although I will always have my shortcomings, believing the lies of the enemy when it comes to my heart and my worth and my family- will no longer be one.

It was not an absence of longing for my own children. It was purely a fear of failure. So, enemy, I am taking my future back from you. And I am beginning to dream again of a little white house on the corner, only this time I’m adding a few more plates to the dinner table.

THANK YOU, LORD. THANK YOU, LORD. 

“But his face had that hollow look, as if there was something gone… you know that look. The inward focus. Distantly attentive to the home you’re missing, or the someone you’re missing. That look that a bird has when it turns it dry reptilian eye on you. That look that doesn’t see you because the mind is filled up with someone it would rather see.” 

Gregory Maguire The Next Queen of Heaven