| So do you know what? My two younger boys have had many emotional and attitudinal and relational struggles as of late. In fact, one day this past week my friend Leah stayed for lunchtime when she brought Dietrich home from preschool. And on this short visit she sypathetically exclaimed how crazy Lincoln had been while she was there. I looked at her in surprise and said, "Oh my! He's actually been great since you've been here. The last hour has been the calmest of the day!!" We laughed together at this. And later when I had time to think about it I realized that God has been giving me greater grace to deal with the day to day emotions and conflict of my children. I am finding more stability in my mothering. I read a great post by Rachel Jankovic this week on the importance and power of mothering, homemaking and realized what a perfect match this vocation is for me. I spent 21 years (13 years post-college) actively, intensely trying to find a meaningful vocation and actually moved up here to Minneapolis in a brave, I-turned-30 leap into art school for a second bachelor's degree and a try at making a vocation out of something I loved when - shazam! - I meet The Bradley Johannsen of Des Moines, Iowa. And 10 months later we got married and 9 months and 4 days after that we had Atticus. Since then I've had this guilty, yucky feeling that I cheated. That I never found my true vocation. That I failed the test of those 13 adult years of singleness. But I am just now starting to see what Brad has been telling me all along: that I didn't fail the test. That God knew what He had in store for me. He knew what He wanted me to read, where He wanted me to live, who He wanted me to meet, the conversations He wanted me to have (with others, in my head & heart), all the jobs and wanderings and questions and friendships and loneliness He wanted me to experience. He was preparing me for this. And I don't need to be embarrassed -- as if being a stay at home wife and mother is a consolation prize or the kind of job you do when you don't have any other skills or ambitions or passions or interests. No, no, no! I feel so privileged to have this career. I love the utter meaning of what I am doing. Every job has it's monotony, it's dull stretches, it's hard parts that chaff at your spirit -- but this one is so completely meaningful in all it's repetitive cleaning and folding and straightening and correcting and training and book-reading and nose-wiping. So utterly meaningful and I feel the possibilities and excitement of building up these four children and having our family, our home being a place to love and know our neighbors and friends and strangers and spilling over into the lives each of my children who will increasingly have their own circles of loving and knowing others and doing things that are worth doing. I still have spinning myriads of ideas and dreams of beautiful, true things I want to sew and draw and construct and make but it is part of and out from this solid, central place of caring for and knowing and loving these 4 little ones and Bradley. Instead of finally finding my vocation, I was being prepared for it all along and now finally here I am in the thick of it. Hallelujah and Amen. |
