postpartum
Even when I wanted to feel happy, an invisible weight pulled me back under the waves of my resentment.
“I am never going to feel like me again. The world is moving on without me. No one cares about me. I’m up all night and no one sees me or the work I’m doing. I’ll never be a good mom if I can’t get this under control.”
It didn’t matter that these thoughts were lies. It didn’t matter that I had a loving husband and family. The only thing that mattered in that moment were those feelings to me. It FELT real to me.
For generations the women in my family have felt this way after their baby’s born. It’ll pass they said - it’s just hormonal. But it wasn’t hormonal it was an attack on the very essence of my calling. I was called to be a mama, and this was a brutal full force battle on that calling.
When I’m in these moments of full force anxiety and depression, it’s hard to hear God’s voice. His voice - it’s so gentle. These thoughts were too loud for me to hear Him. What I did hear through the noise in my mind was his sweet voice calling me to “remember.”
Yes, Lord. I will remember. I will remember your love for me. I will remember the cross where you died for me. I will remember what you’ve done for me to get me to this point here. I will remember your word. This was the manna that got me through, but not over. I could make it each day on this, it was enough, sustaining. But it was not enough for me to move on. I could exist in the battle here, but I couldn’t fight back.
Then, I went to church. There God met me through the sermon, but not in the way you’d think. It was anger that pushed me to lay it all down at the altar. The pastor preached about how you can’t lose your spark, and if you have then you needed to pray harder, read your Bible, go back to what you did when you first fell in love with Him. Anger rose up inside of me as I knelt at that altar.
Did God not see me? Here I was praying, crying out to Him. Soaking myself in worship and sermons online. Praying over my family, my baby, myself. Just asking for all of it to break. To be able to see some form of light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, Lord, thank you for sustaining me, but I want this OFF of me! I don’t want to do this anymore! I’m so exhausted.
Suddenly, I saw myself kneeling at the altar, but I saw myself the way God was seeing me. I was bloodied and bruised like I’d been in an awful fight.
What happened to me, God?
“The enemy wants you to cave. He wants you to give your motherhood experience to him. He wants you to decide - him or Me?”
God, I choose you. I want you.
“Don’t tell Me, tell him.”
I fell to my face on the altar and wept. I had been choosing to believe the enemy’s lies over God’s truth. I felt a shift in my body. Something broke or maybe I released something there. I had held so tightly to my expectations of what motherhood should be that I didn’t let what it was wash over me.
I spoke directly to the enemy then. I don’t want anymore of what you have to offer me! I will not let bitterness and resentment hold me in this state anymore! You will not take anymore of my motherhood experience from me.
When I left the altar something was different. Lighter. I was different in motherhood too. When tantrums come, when hard days arise (and they do still happen) I can tell I’m tired and drained, but I’m able to fill back up again easier. I don’t dread the next morning. I look forward to the next day, a fresh day.
In the book “The Experience of Inner Healing,” Ruth Carter Stapleton prays a prayer about having faith over feelings and I updated it for my experience.
“Lord, if I never feel like me again, if I never feel loved any more, if I never feel that I want to help anybody, if I never feel the way I want to in motherhood, I commit myself to walk by faith in obedience to your word. I commit myself to Jesus Christ without feeling. ”
I know it sounds crazy to commit yourself to Jesus without feeling. But the weight of having to “feel” a certain way in motherhood was too much for me. I expected to feel one way and felt the exact opposite. Laying those feelings down at the altar freed me to appreciate motherhood for what it was for me and what it could grow to be for me.
So, for all the vulnerable mamas out there. I see you. I see those nights when you don’t sleep because you’re crying over a screaming baby. I see you look in the mirror and not recognize the dark circles and mess of hair looking back at you. I see those tear stained journals crying out to God and wishing things felt different. If you’re drowning in the tidal wave of postpartum, like I was, I want you to know that you can ride the wave instead. We’ll ride it together.