Tag: motherhood

Writing

Writer Moms

Faith Chang

I snapped this photo in my car a few weeks ago while my older girls were in piano lessons. Me with my laptop, working on my manuscript. I’m not sure if I got much writing done with the younger two in the back, but I probably did some, hence the selfie and the smiling.

If one thing surprised me after I became a stay-at-home mom, it was that I’d feel called to something outside the context of homemaking and ministry. And though I’ve settled into writing over the years, I still feel the underlying tension of needing to figure out what to do with my limited supply of time, energy, and health given the various desires and duties I have.

One thing that’s encouraged me immensely as I’ve navigated motherhood and writing is hearing from other Christian women who are also mothers, and also have been called to create.* Their sharing about self-doubt. Their wondering, “What is this—a hobby? Leisure? Or something else.” (I think it was Jen Pollack Michel who somewhere put words to my own wonderings here.) Their honesty about how making space to create has meant sacrifices and hard choices, and how things don’t always fall into place in neat ways. As they share the way they process these dual callings (mom + writer/artist), I am able to imagine what faith and faithfulness might look like for me.

So I thought I’d also share this in-process photo because I went through a familiar-to-me cycle today. From despairing that I’ll ever have the time or energy or solitude to finish the first draft of a chapter, to having a painful knot in my stomach thinking about all I need to do (including but not limited to writing), to doubling over onto my bed to pray, to having a few surprising hours of writing granted to me, to feeling simultaneously guilty about not engaging more with my children and wishing I had more time alone. Also, to gratitude.

I share because though I’m still in need of wisdom on how to make things work with family, ministry, work, and writing, I’m grateful for the space God gave me to work on a chapter of my manuscript today.

I’m thankful because each time I come out of this despairing to grateful cycle, the inkling that “God provides” grows. Each time, I am a bit more prepared to push back against the panic of “I am never going to have time for this!” when it invariably rises again.

And I’m thankful for many reminders lately that I haven’t ended up here by my own force of will. God has answered so, so many prayers up to this point. He has prepared good work for me that I am walking into. His calling is his equipping and provision. And that is so very heartening.

*Here are some of these women: Jen Pollack Michel, Maile Silva on The Stories Between Us, Phaedra Jean Taylor, and Rebecca K. Reynolds.

Motherhood & Family, Taking Heart, Truth & Orthodoxy

Existential Angst, Baby’s Breath, & The Preacher

Faith Chang

IMG_4370She would’ve napped for longer if I put her down in the crib, but I let her fall asleep on me because I love the feel of her in my arms. “You love this age,” my sister said to me recently— I really do. I love the way she still fits, her chubby thighs, and her soft baby breaths.

Baby snuggles are one of God’s answers lately to my existential angst.

“There is godly way to pursue things in the world and sinful ways to pursue spiritual things,” one of my professors said once. His words worked to shift something in my foundations, my concrete paradigms of the Christian life. They also point a finger at the vestiges of sin in me. In particular, a sinful way I try to pursue the Kingdom is to demand direct ties between my good works— whether through writing, at church, or in my home— and visible fruit. This is part of my bent as a big picture person (NF, for you Myerrs-Brigg-ers) who is always looking for connections. It’s why I write, and read, and think. But in the everyday, it means I often try to find peace and purpose through productivity. The measures are ostensibly spiritual— but the trap is that in seeking to justify my work through results, I am seeking to do sacred work while still walking by sight.

This desire to know without a doubt that I am accomplishing all I should do, and in everything doing things of eternal consequence, bears bad fruit. I’m prone to fretfulness over my own effectiveness, to perfectionism in what I do, to anxiety over wasted time, and an overall inability to rest. It also leads to, “Why-do-I-feel-so-tired-and-like-I-didn’t-do-all-I-should-but-it’s-not-like-I-wasted-time-today-so-did-I-make-the-right-choices?” and the aforementioned existential angst.

Motherhood has been sanctifying here. In part, it has limited my ability to spend time on explicitly “spiritual” work so that I need to trust God’s words on the sacredness of secular work. It has led to more exhaustingly “unproductive” days than one. But it also has been the sphere of life I’ve received gracious correction through the comfort of God’s good gifts.

As a seeker of meaning, I find myself circling back to Ecclesiastes every so often, and I have been camping here recently. Here the Old Testament Preacher grapples with the question of life’s purpose. He cannot find it in pleasure, wealth, wisdom, or toil and so again and again speaks of life feeling meaningless, “a chasing after the wind.” His answer ultimately though, is not to deny pleasure, wealth, wisdom, or work. Rather, he declares:

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. I perceived that whatever God does endures forever; nothing can be added to it, nor anything taken from it. God has done it, so that people fear before him. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God’s gift to man. (Eccl. 3:11-12)

The reason the Preacher cannot find meaning in the temporal is not because it is bad, but because on every side he pushes against mystery. As eternal beings, our hearts grasp at the strings to connect all we do to the eternal. But in our finitude, we cannot begin to trace them all. Thus, the Preacher’s answer for my longing to find my security and justify my life through my works is worship. God alone, he says, does work that endures forever. We cannot add or take away from it, we cannot even fathom the sum of it. And so, we fear him who does eternal things. And our role here? We are called to “be joyful and do good” as long as we live, and to receive from God the gifts he gives.

Eric Liddell, missionary and Olympian running, said once that when he did, he felt God’s pleasure. In contrast, his competitor is depicted in the movie Chariots of Fire as describing his races as “10 lonely seconds to justify my existence.” The Christian, justified by Christ and delighted by the Father, does not need to justify her own existence. We work, yes, but as a gift. And we receive all he has to give during our few days under the sun, trusting that he who is over the sun is building something that lasts through the good we do.

As we surrender our self-justification, God gives us contentment and the ability to enjoy his gifts and our toil:

Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is to eat and drink andfind enjoyment in all the toil with which one toils under the sun the few days of his life that God has given him, for this is his lot. Everyone also to whom God has given wealth and possessions  and power to enjoy them, and to accept his lot and rejoice in his toil—this is the gift of God. For he will not much remember the days of his life because God keeps him occupied with joy in his heart.

Through the Scriptures, God dismantles my idolatry of productivity and success, silencing the voices of accusation and judgement of a twisted conscience that does not allow for rest or mistakes or a sense of God’s pleasure. I can delight in the things of this world— my work, my children— and receive the contentment I feel in loving and serving them as good. As I learn to walk by faith, to surrender my need to understand and justify my own existence on my own terms, I rest with the little one snuggling in my arms. I receive this rest— and her— as given out of an overflow of God’s love.

We celebrated a birthday in our family this week, it flew by like a highway mile marker, giving testimony that the years indeed are a breath. We each shared why we were thankful for the birthday girl. We enjoyed a meal at one of her favorite restaurants. We delighted in each other. Food and drink, family, presents, and a sudden declaration of “BEST DAY OF THE YEAR!” by one being honored— all gifts. All from God who “keeps us occupied with joy in our hearts.”

Yes, the years are a but a breath, but they are so filled lavishly with good things by the unspeakably good God of infinite worth, power, and wisdom. Knowing this, I will work and rest today, and in worship, breathe it in.

Motherhood & Family

My Soil

Faith Chang

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(from Instagram)

“Can we check on our garden?” I give them the go ahead and they run to fill their cans in the bathroom, watering the kitchen tiles on their way out. They return with strawberries, cilantro, and news of promising zucchini flowers and sunflower stems.

I leave most outdoor activities to Jeff, but I think writing, for me, is what gardening is to him. When I arrange and tend to words and thoughts, I feel I’m doing good work, even if only as an amateur in my backyard. The fact that my work yields handfuls of fruit at a time is okay with me. I enjoy it and am thankful it can be beneficial to others in some measure.

It’s hard though to find energy and time. And a few months ago, I found myself growing impatient at the demands of home and family because I wanted to write more. It occurred to me then that I was in danger of resenting the very soil God wanted me to write out of.

It’s tempting to imagine we’d accomplish more— for God even— if not for the circumstances we’ve been placed in. It’s easy to believe we’d bear more fruit if only. If only the kids weren’t so needy. If only the people I discipled more mature. If only my parents more reasonable. If only schoolwork easier. If only my health were better.

But beloved, Divine Love has ordained for you this season and place to offer worship and obedience you could not offer in any other time or place. And as you abide in Christ, he promises the fruit you bear this season will last (John 15:16).

If it were up to me, I’d probably choose to bear fruit in a climate-controlled, sterile greenhouse. Here I’d serve, live, love, and write without hindrance. But I am bound to my own time and place, affected by the weather and surrounded by dirt. This is the soil I have been placed in to work out my salvation— the vocation of motherhood, the heartache of ministry, the needs of souls, life circumscribed by my limited body.

Here, I have been called to bear the fruit of the Spirit, to serve, to be made more like Jesus. Here, in this season, in this space, with gardening children and slippery kitchen floors.

Motherhood & Family

Wisdom To Number Our Days

Faith Chang

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(from Instagram)

My heart has been feeling achy these days. Having a newborn has made me realize how our years with her siblings have flown by. It also reminds me how little time they all have left here with us.

Like a dream. Like grass that grows and withers. This is how the psalmist describes our years on earth (Ps.90). So in light of our fleetingness, he asks God to teach us to number our days. This, he writes, is how we gain wisdom.

I have seen lately how my parenting is often downright foolish. I am irritable instead of grateful for the moments God grants me with my children. I respond to them with harshness instead of commending Christ. I waive opportunities to build our relationship in the name of busyness. And when I do these things, I am forgetting that my years, and our years together, are numbered.

Teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom- Ps. 90:12.— I need this divine, day-numbering wisdom so badly.

I need this wisdom to look through my children’s behavior and aim to win their hearts. To discipline with their 13, 18, and 30 year-old future selves in mind.

I need this wisdom to build them up with words of grace and not just give orders. To remember the significance of the years between us is growing smaller by the day. One they will one be my peers and hopefully friends.

I need this wisdom to seize every opportunity to make much of Christ. To put down what I’m doing when possible and help my children see the goodness of God while I still can.

I need this wisdom to enjoy my time with them. To stop and thank God for the fleeting, sweet craziness of life with 3 young children and an infant.

Parents, truly, our days may be long, but our years are short. Let’s look to number them rightly — these exhausting, sweet, bitter, good, frustrating days— that God may grant us hearts of wisdom.

Motherhood & Family, Taking Heart

No, I’m Not A Pro

Faith Chang

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It hit me over Tex-Mex after a doctor’s appointment last week. I paused from my burrito, looked at Jeff and said, Can you believe we are going to have 4 kids? Can you believe we have 3?

I’m 37 weeks pregnant and baby girl could arrive any time. My doctor jokes about how I’m a “pro” going into my fourth labor and delivery, but the truth is, I don’t feel much more prepared for this baby than I felt 7+ years ago. If anything, three kids deep, I feel less sufficient for the task. Weeks (or days) away from meeting our fourth, I don’t feel as capable as I might have thought I’d be by now.

It’s not just the number of kids, really. (Though when I was pregnant with our first I couldn’t imagine how people made it past one.) I remember being discharged from the hospital with our firstborn and thinking, “That’s it? They’re just going to let us take her?” That we are allowed to be parents at all is still as shocking to me. As a mom of three, the enormity of the task of motherhood continues to dawn on me daily in new ways as does my inability to carry it out as I ought.

There is much more mystery in parenting than I had anticipated. I never expected to always have the right answers, to know what to do at all times, but I don’t think I ever realized how incredible it would be to be firsthand witness to a child’s life. As parents, there’s no one else who knows your children as well as you do and it’s easy to start feeling like you’ve got them figured out. At the same time, there is so much we are still learning about our children, so much hidden in the depths of who they are that we are only beginning to see.

It’s not just that each child has a unique combination of personality and preference,  strengths and weaknesses. It’s been fun to watch these aspects of their personhood be revealed, to learn who’s good at what, to be able to anticipate their different responses to circumstances, and to know how to help them differently. But there is a deeper reality that has become more apparent to me these days. That is, the fact that my children are daily interacting with the world— and with me— as embodied souls.

It’s not that I didn’t know this before, that my children have souls, but the reality of it is  becoming increasingly evident to me. I see it as we talk and they give me insight on how they interpret the world. I see it as they struggle to do good, as they grapple with their fears. I see it as they become aware of the brokenness in and around them.

I see it when one of them calls from the bed, “Mom, I have a question— it’s a Bible question!” It turns out she doesn’t just want to know some facts from Scripture, but what to do with her knowledge of falling short of God’s standard. We sit and talk through how difficult it is to be sorry and how hard it is to forgive.

The whole day, I have interacted with her primarily as caretaker and in-charge momma, now we speak as fellow struggling sinner-saints. We talk about how Paul wrote about the waging war inside us, of not doing the good he wanted to do, of doing the evil he didn’t want. I struggle too, I tell her, and we will continue to until we see Jesus. But he forgives us. He can change us. “I think I get it now,” she says sweetly. We hug and say goodnight. I have not been granted a chance to hear her thoughts and feelings, I have been gifted a chance to glimpse the inner workings of her soul.

My children are immortal beings with eternal souls. I would say this takes my breath away, but I don’t want to give the wrong impression. It feels less like witnessing a pretty sunset at the beach and more like standing at the precipice of a mountain. The view is incredible but my sense of helplessness at the top of sheer rock is almost overwhelming. To be entrusted with the care of souls is beautiful and terrifying at the same time. It is a holy task.

When I spoke to my daughter, we weren’t just interacting as thinkers. I couldn’t just operate out of my knowledge of religious truth, philosophy, or child psychology. Parenting is soul work. As she tried to make sense of what she knows and feels to be right, her own experience of being unable to carry it out, and her fears about the implications of her failure, her heart was making sense of truths with eternal consequences. My children are daily learning to live their lives before the face of God, of the reality of sinful nature, and hopefully, learning the wonder of the gospel.

Thus it is with fear and trembling that I prepare to welcome our newest family member into the world. I am not a pro. I could never wear any motivational mom gear because I am not #momstrong or a #bossmom by any measure. I don’t say this just because I know I should, but because I feel my own insufficiency more deeply and the weighty task of caring for these souls to be increasingly heavy. Yet I think there may be one thing I dare say I have grown in since not-so-baby-anymore #1, and that is turning to the one who is sufficient.

Many years ago, I may have crumbled into discouragement and fear at this growing sense of the enormity of motherhood, but by grace, I am learning to lean on grace. I have grown a bit, I hope, in running more quickly to my eternal refuge and help, to the one who welcomes weak moms and those who feel like they don’t know what they’re doing. I am recognizing more quickly that as I start feeling like panicking from the heights, that this is a call to trust. It is a call not to dwell on my lack but at his willingness to give grace, to finish my declaration of weakness with James 4:6’s but he gives more grace.

I have found there are one of two great temptations we are faced with when standing before tasks too great for us. First, the world would encourage us to turn inward at this point, to self-help and positive hashtags. But many of us have fallen enough times into the foolish self-confidence of Peter, who after declaring that he was different than all the other disciples, that he’d never deny Christ, found himself weeping at the end of the night. We have had enough of our own declarations of strength and subsequent failures.

The second temptation though, when we find ourselves trembling, is to try to pass off our unbelief as humility. Just as as soon-to-be-king Saul hid among the luggage even after God made clear his calling, we may walk in something that looks like humility, but actually is unwillingness to trust in his grace.

We, however, are called to a third way. To declare as Paul did, that though we are weak, our God is strong. As Christians we are freed not only to admit, but boast in our weaknesses and hear our God declare the sufficiency of his grace over us. His power is made perfect in our lack, so we stand confident in the strength he promises to give us to face the tasks he calls us to. Whatever your particular temptation in the face of God’s calling, know this — God gives more grace. He delights to show himself merciful to the humble and needy, and when you turn to him in your weakness, he receives glory by showing the sufficiency of his grace.

So here I am, in the last stretch of pregnancy, still learning to trust God with the life of my baby. Only instead of just wondering whether her heart will beat until we hold her in our arms (which I still grapple with anxiety about), I am trusting God for grace to care for her soul and the souls of her siblings.

I don’t know what you are being called to these days, whether it’s parenting or something else, but I do know that our sense of inadequacy and insufficiency often serves to remind us that God calls us to holy tasks too great for us. Maybe the reason why your particular task seems so huge is simply because it is huge. To live in obedience to God, to love as he loves, to trust and obey, to persevere through suffering– these are no small things whatever the context.

Whether in church, work, friendship, or family, we need not be strong on our own. We need not cower because of our inability. Though we may stand trembling at the precipices of God’s tremendous calling for our lives, we can trust.  Fully aware of the beauty and enormity of the tasks he has granted us, we look to him. Truly, our tasks are great and we really are insufficient for them, but even so, he gives more grace.

P.S.  I’ve been away from the blog for a while because I’ve been working on another writing project– but I hope to be posting more regularly again! They’ll probably be shorter posts so I can get them out more often, but hopefully they will be still be helpful. 

P.P.S. At the advice of a friend, I’m starting an Instagram account for this blog that I plan on using more regularly. If you’re on Instagram you can start following @keepingheartblog.