Of Motherhood, Careers and Salvation

There’s been a lot of shouting over the fence lately. Christians on each side, weighing in on the debate:

Is being a mom enough, or do women also need a career to find true fulfillment?

As if there aren't whole lives to be lived before and after our child-rearing years. Alexander the Great conquered the known world by the time he was thirty - my sisters, what are you waiting for? Seriously, I’m not here to put down anyone else’s journey. But I do feel called to add my voice and my experience, mostly for my sons, and so...

Dear Sons,

It’s been about fourteen years since, at the age of thirty-three, I chucked a successful career in order to parent and homeschool you full time. The regret I have is the same one I had the minute they placed you in my arms: I wish I’d done it much, much earlier. I was blown away by the feelings I had for you - I wasn't one of those baby crazy girls. I wasn't even sure I would like you until I saw you, but you had me at "hello."

I know you'll roll your eyes at this part. "Oh, Mom," you'll say. But if I lost that career only to gain the chance to tickle your little baby toes with kisses every morning, breathe in your milky breaths as you drifted off to sleep, nuzzle your wrinkly necks, be there for your first smiles, and your first words and your first steps – it would have been enough.

The Bible says that women will be saved through child bearing, if they continue in faith and love and holiness with self-control. It’s a notoriously difficult and mysterious verse, especially in our culture, and one open to a lot of misinterpretation. It’s a verse I preferred to ignore, until I had children.

Jesus walked with me on my journey of enlightenment through all of your many incarnations: the screaming at 2:00 a.m. infant, the exhausting never stop toddler, the astonishing man-child and the amazing young adult. Both of you on more than one occasion came close to death and I was nearly undone. Even so, every day with you has been full of life – and if I haven’t loved every moment, I’ve loved every phase. I kid you not, each year I’ve thought, “This age is the best.”

While I worked in partnership with your two fathers, the earthly one and the Heavenly One, to love you and grow you up, this is what grew in me: love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Hmmm, where have I seen that list before?

Like the Book says, there is a season for everything under the sun. Over the next few years, our season, the one where you get the best of my creativity and the lion’s share of my time, will come to an end. More and more, God will use my gifts and talents elsewhere.

But I want to be clear, I’m not leaving you in order to find myself. I’m not leaving you at all, and I already know who I am – a strong and courageous child of the living God; someone who knows how to love, sacrifice, comfort, and show compassion and mercy; a woman whose faith in her Savior can no longer be shaken, and I became this person while I was your mom. My sons, know this: So many times and in so many ways being your mother has saved me. For that, and for you, I will be eternally grateful.

Secret Identity

So many people to be…so little time. A recent article in Wired titled Hunting the Ghost reminded me why, for a while, I wanted to be an investigative journalist. I’ve also been reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories over the break, while simultaneously streaming the first two seasons of the BBC’s Sherlock Holmes – a surreal experience that has put me in a detective-loving mood and filled my dreams with riddles.

But back to the story in Wired about “the world’s best bounty hunter,” a woman named Michelle Gomez who does something called “skip tracing.” In the words of the article, “a skip tracer finds people and things that have disappeared on purpose. Gomez specializes in hard-to-locate recoveries. She prefers cases others can’t solve.”

How Sherlock of her.

The article went on to tell the story of Gomez tracking down, not a criminal mastermind, no modern-day Moriarty, but a criminal who stumbled on a genius method of distraction. This bad guy discovered that by creating multiple identities via the Internet, credit cards, and social networking, his true identity became so obscured that it left him practically untraceable. Not untraceable for our Sherlock, of course. Gomez made short work of him.

…he confided that three days before his capture he’d had a feeling something was wrong and thought then about moving to a new location. “I wish I had listened to myself,” he said.

Gomez laughs when she hears this. “Maybe he lost track of which self he was, until I came along to remind him.”

by Melissa Rose

And I thought, I’ve done that. Lost track of which self I am, where my identity is found. Haven’t we all? In an age of “self-branding,” we use social media to create different versions of ourselves about which only we know the real truth or lie.

This is nothing new. People have been fooling themselves and others since people first walked and talked. That was the great thing about Jesus. He came along and instantly knew who everyone was, better than they knew themselves. He happily shared his knowledge:

• The women weren’t chattel, the children weren’t burdens, the old and poor and sick weren’t useless. They were important, valued, and the kingdom of heaven belonged to such as them. 
• The religious elite weren’t good or God-fearing. They were “white-washed” tombs, full of darkness and death, who couldn’t even manage generosity, let alone righteousness. 
• A group of uneducated fishermen weren't beaten down men stuck in dead-end jobs. They were the strong rocks on which Christ would build his church and save the world.

Then there was one of my personal favorites: the encounter with the woman at the well. Jesus gently cuts through all the “branding” that had been done to her and by her, and then does the thing she needs most, though she hadn’t realized it. He reveals who He is, her Savior, her God, the only place in which she could find her true identity: “If you knew who you were talking to you would ask me for the water that gives life.” The woman reveals she’s been hoping for the Messiah, that she believes when He comes He will “explain everything to us.” Jesus tells her simply, “I am that one, and I am speaking to you now.”

Jesus is very clear on who we are and who He is. This is no secret to Him. We are the confused ones. Through the static and the noise and the digital identities we create for ourselves, He speaks. Ignoring the false names we call ourselves and others, He’s happy to tell us who we are.

"I am speaking to you now."

Down all the wrong paths we’ve taken (He, too, prefers cases that others can’t solve). Despite the ways we’ve been branded and the lies we’ve believed and our stupid, stupid pride.

"I am speaking to you now."

We drink of the water He offers, and He names us: Chosen, Holy, Blameless Before God. Beloved, Redeemed, A New Creation.

I forget sometimes who I really am...until He comes along and reminds me.