A post by my friend Sarah has gotten me thinking about duty and free will. And love.
Right now, I feel very tied down. Absolutely restricted. But not in any malevolent sense. I am simply bound.
I am bound by the demands of four children. I am bound to spend my waking hours tending to their needs and their comforts. Those take most of the time. I am moreover bound to their education and their sanctification.
But I walked into my restrictions of my own free will. My husband and I bound ourselves in our marriage vows, and the children follow logically.
But it's strange, nonetheless, because though children were what I signed up for, I did not expect four, ages four and under; I did not expect twins. I did not expect this.
So, in that way, it feels like I gave the Lord an inch and He took an ell, binding me to a regimen of hard, delightful labor.
It's a bizarre feeling to be doing exactly what I wanted to do, but without the liberty of doing anything else. I've always believed the maxim, "You can have it all, just not all at once" but I never before knew how few things you might be allowed at once.
Just this. I just need to do this. And do it, and do it, and learn to do it very well. There is no room - or very little - for anything other than my family.
(On a side note: I wish, wish, wish it were possible to explain to anyone who is not a parent of twims just how all-consuming having two babies at once is. It is the deepest blessing and the direst strain of your resources. My mother worried that we didn't know - in our head-deepness - how little margin we have in our lives right now. But I assured her, "oh, we know. Whenever we actually get a chance to talk, that's about all we talk about.")
But what is this one thing I'm learning? What is it the Lord has constrained me to learn?
Love. Love and obedience. I think the Lord decided, in His grace, to constrain me to learn to love and to obey.
And trust. He has taken me beyond my own resources, my own ability, and told me to obey anyway. And minute by minute, He has taken up the slack, multiplied my fishes, kept us afloat, cleared away again and again what seemed to be the storm that would surely drown us.
It is strange, to be forced to practice the virtue you always wanted. I think, if I keep obeying, I won't be able to help becoming a loving person. Not the selfish, crabbed one I was before. But a true Christian. Of my own free will, but only by God's constant badgering, constraining, helping, warning.
As I wrote on Sarah's blog: On my best days these days, my free will and my necessity are running in tandem, and I’m hoping that when necessity slackens, that my will keeps me going on this straight line of duty and delight. (Not of changing diapers, but of loving others.)
That's the thing? Can I keep doing it when I don't have to do it? So far, I don't think so. But I hope so. Someday.
By God's grace alone. Meanwhile, I'll do this. Thank you, Father, for this kindest of disciplines.
peace of Christ to you,
Jessica Snell
2 comments:
I may be totally off here, so let me know if I am. One of the things I've loved about watching you with your kids is that you're someone who fully embraced motherhood even though it's not the one thing that's going to fulfill your life, or the only thing you ever wanted to do. I mean, I see you loving your kids and parenting their socks off and fulfilled in that, but you also seem to want more out of life. I guess I love how you can embrace this one thing, for this time, and not feel completely smothered or stifled under it even though you want more things later on. Does that make sense?
Back to something a little more on topic, your thoughts on necessity here have the wheels turning in my head. I hear you on not being able to do everything (though I have more margin that you do, at least right now). After my duties to work and my duties to Dave and our marriage, there's not a lot left for the other things I want to do and learn. And that's been hard. At the same time, it's just true. I don't have time for everything right now. I have time for a few things one day, one or two another, and nothing but the necessary on a third. And walking that path seems both obedient and necessary, at least at the moment.
You know, I'm thankful for eternity...time to do and learn and be everything God put it in me to do and learn and be.
Thanks be to God.
Hi, my name is Elisabeth, and I just wanted to let you know I have been enjoying reading your blog. I enjoy the balance of practical homemaking tips, incorporating church into your home, and honest reflections.
And all the best to you as you deal with four little ones and twins! I can't even imagine what it must be like. May you rejoice often in God's adundant grace!
I have noticed a that the challenge of being a mother amoung by peers comes with quite a bit of difficulty in giving up other "interests." These interests usually seem to be intellecutal pursuits, or rather pursuits that involve using the mind more than it is being exercised by taking care of toddlers.
Perhaps this difficulty comes so often, because as women, our hearts are underexercised? Perhaps, we have become use to using our minds, but our hearts are lagging behind toward a healthy, spiritual development of learning the most important thing, namely how to love?
Anyway, I am thankful for the gift of children that leaves us no room for developing our hearts more as women. The curse of childbirth becomes a blessing. And though I don't have children, I am thankful when other people's wills interferes with my own, because these interactions reveal my own lack of love and the weak condition of my heart.
Simple, yes. But something my heart surely needs more exercise in!
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