Motherhood - Part 1 (Dying to Self)
Mother's Day this year came and passed.
10th year being a mother and I can't say I've done a great job at it, but neither am I too bad at it. I am, to put it simply, a mother to the 2 children given to me from the Lord. Nothing more, nothing less.
The week before Mother's Day, I was filled with a sense of 'inadequacy' in the area of motherhood. And I couldn't help but to feel a little down on some moments. Especially after I got upset or angry at my children and reacted rather 'unmotherly' towards them.
On those days, I felt 'guilt'. I felt 'lack'. And that thing called 'train of thoughts' inside my mind took a train track down the path called 'worry lane'.
Along the 'worry lane', the train stopped at each train station.
How will Daniel's future look like?
Have I done enough to prepare/ train my Daniel for future?
How will he fare after we, his parents, are gone?
Or will he leave before us (I still remember the average age for individuals with PWS from the statistics I read long ago)?
(See the kind of strange questions that one entertains in worry lane.)
As much as I know the lie behind those thoughts, I couldn't help stopping at each station, and I allowed myself to ponder these questions.
I said I 'allowed myself' because I clearly have the choice not to.
Yet do you know what? Often times, it is not our self-determination and good choices that get us out of the pit.
But who will deliver me from this body of death? I thank God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! (Rom 7:25). For it is God who works in me both to will and to do for His good pleasure. (Phil 2:13)
Therefore, thankfully, I do not need to condemn myself over my episode of traveling down 'worry lane'.
That being said, I am not proud to say that as I allowed myself to mule over those thoughts, my emotion cooperated with my mind, telling me 'you are worried, you are sad'. And these emotions hedged me in and trapped me from within.
On the Saturday morning before Mother's Day, I brought my son jogging. On our way home, we passed a secondary school and it happened to be a school day for them. A boy got off his father/ mother's car to walk across the road to his school.
From where I was sitting in the car, few cars behind from the traffic light, I could only see the boy's back and side profile. He was tall and slender. Thick black hair, guitar bag in his right hand, a backpack on his left. He must be 16 or 17.
As he crossed the road, I felt a pain in my heart. And tears welled up in my eyes.
Right at that instant, I heard the Holy Spirit telling me 'You have to fully grieve your ideal of a son, Irene.'
I realised I was looking at an image I had in my mind when I first knew I was bearing a son - tall, slender, handsome, gentle, plays guitar and is good academically.
(You may laugh since it sounds more like 'boyfriend criteria' of a young girl. Because, obviously, who has ever heard a mum speak about her son in such a way? But well, that's how I pictured my son to be when he was still inside my womb.)
When I got home and got a moment to myself, I sat down with my Lord, knowing that He wants to, He can and He will heal me. He has shown me the hidden sorrow that I have not realised I had carried. And He wants me to fully grieve it, releasing it out from my soul to Him. He wants me to empty myself of my 'self' and yield this part of me to Him too.
Some years ago, my husband and I were having a casual breakfast with a pastor. And somehow our conversation lingered on our journey with a child with special needs. The pastor gave us words of wisdom and encouragement. And he said something that I still remember to this day - "You need to grieve your expectation and your idea of a child."
You see, we all have a picture in our mind of what everything looks like. How 'happy family' look like, how 'success' look like, how 'good husband' look like... how 'children' look like...
When what is in front of our eyes (our reality) doesn't match the picture in our mind (however that may be and for whatever reasons), we need to allow ourselves to grieve it. Because only by fully grieving it, are we able to let go and then surrender it to God.
The day before Mother's Day this year, as I sat with my Lord, I knew that there is an area in my life, in my heart, in my soul that is not wholly His yet. And the Lord is ever so gently drawing me out of it.
I have an idol in this area. My 'self' had pictured and envisioned an ideal child. An ideal motherhood. An ideal mother. An ideal me. I had a dream of what the future looks like, painting it with my imagination and hope.
But of course, all that did not come to pass, as how I thought it would be.
Motherhood started off very differently for me. You can read about my stories (Part 5 of my earlier God stories) here: I wrote about the pregnancy and birth as well as the diagnosis. (I wrote these in 2021 with the revelations that I had at the time. So, I might need to read it again myself. 😂)
That day, as I sat alone with my Lord, I felt a 'dying'.
(You know how Christians have coined up that term 'die to self'? Now I don't think that phrase is found in Scripture but every follower of Christ would have heard and been taught about this aspect of our walk with God.)
Almost 10 years ago, my dream 'died'. But it didn't die a willing death. It was, one may say, forced to die. Simply because, at the time, I had no choice but to let go of that dream. I mean, what else could I do except to accept and let go?
In my mouth and in my head, I would say and declare that my son is fearfully and wonderfully made. Yet deep in my heart, I still had my version of what that is supposed to be - a picture of what 'fearfully and wonderfully made' mean and how that look like. I kept it hidden, buried away in a deep part of my soul, not realising that I hadn't let it go completely.
That Saturday afternoon, that picture died.
And with that, that hidden, buried away part of my 'self' died.
I heard these words - "If you desire to come after Me, deny yourself, take up your cross daily, and follow Me."
After uttering these words from Luke 9:23, Jesus said that For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.
 |
| Source: Internet |
I am not talking about a negative, passive kind of letting go and dying to self. A 'there's nothing I can do, so I just have to accept it and surrender it' kind of let go.
I am talking about this - I had a picture of how 'thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope' look like. I had a picture of how 'fearfully and wonderfully made' look like. It looked nothing like PWS. It looked nothing like what is in front of my eyes right now. But I let it go. I emptied that picture. I go to the His Word and I dwell there. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. So, He is the God of Timothy, Irene, Daniel and Esther. He has thoughts of peace towards my children, to give them a future and a hope. He has fearfully and wonderfully made them.
Ever heard of that famous phrase, 'let go and let God'?
Well, as I sat with my Lord, what I needed more was to 'let go'. And so, I did.
It wasn't so much of 'I choose to let go, I self-willed to let it go, I worked at it with my hardest determination and effort to let it go.' (As I said earlier, the good that I will to do, I do not do.)
Yet somehow, as I bare my dream, my emotions and my grief to my Lord, He sat with me and healed me.
As I opened up the dark, hidden part of my self, His light shines in and breathes life within.
And just like that, the light comes in, the dark gone.
I let go.
Beloved in Christ, I don't know if there is a 'self' that you're struggling with. Or a 'self' that you've hidden away. Or even a 'self' that you're unaware of.
For me, it was my ideal. I'm not saying that it is wrong to have hope or dream. In my case, it was simply that I had held back this part of me from the Lord and my ideal had become my idol.
Although I had desired to come after Christ, although I had denied my many other 'self', there is still this 'self' that I had not denied and laid down. And when I was still holding on to this 'self', I could not take up my cross and follow Him wholly.
I am like a vast land, which Jesus has conquered yet has not fully taken over. By the mercies and kindness of God, He does not relent. By the grace of God, He takes ground, more and more, inch by inch everyday. I guess that can be liken to what the apostle Paul wrote about 'from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.'
We are all like cities and lands. Some, unfortunately, better fortified than others. 😅 But beloved, Christ is ever gentle and patient. There is life and light in Him.
May we lose our life for His sake and save it.
