Faith and the Modern Mom

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling." Philippians 2:12-13

"K", Photo credit to Jessica McBride

When I was in my first year of university, a self-proclaimed atheist enrolled in a Catholic institution, I remember making the argument to my introductory theology professor that the world was divided into people of faith and people of facts. To my black-and-white mind I was very much a woman of facts. And then life launched me into my journey to find faith.

My First Trial of Faith

At that point in my life I'd already been with my husband (then boyfriend) for a year. B was charismatic and kind and so much more fun than I ever would be, and I loved that about him. I remember how simple things like music or joking around with his brother would make him come alive. He was an apprentice plumber working on his third year of school, I was transferring colleges, we were living in our own apartment, and in the thick of all this living God didn't once cross my mind. Then one day my mother-in-law called tearfully trying to explain something had happened at my brother-in-law's apartment. Unbeknownst to us our lives were forever changed.

In their grief they couldn't get out what had happened though we had known for some time he was depressed. I recall so clearly sitting in our Lancer at a stop light and begging God, if he existed, for B's brother to be okay. I promised to be a better person if he was okay. Fear left me open to all possibilities.

But my desperation went unanswered and my brother-in-law was gone, and so too was a part of the man I love. It changed him terribly and I decided with finality there couldn't possibly be a God- nothing truly benevolent would have crippled so good a man with such agonizing pain. My heart turned cold to the idea of faith for what seemed like a long time.

And then I found it again...

Eventually B healed enough for us to start pushing forward with our life, it was hard-won but we had fought for each other. December 2011 we got married and shortly thereafter we found out we were pregnant with E. Almost immediately we realized my pregnancy was going to be complicated when I had multiple episodes of sudden, heavy bleeding. We went to the hospital, desperate for answers, and were told by a rather unsympathetic OB/GYN resident that they believed my pregnancy to be ectopic despite having no evidence. "A lack of evidence is evidence." I remember her saying before she told me I needed to take methotrexate to end my pregnancy. Perfectly rational, completely sensible given the circumstance. The first thing out of my mouth after talking to my husband about it was, "No."

This was the first time in my life I had ever actually experienced faith. I knew, beyond all reason and rationality being presented to me, that this wasn't an ectopic pregnancy. A woman of fact would've calculated the odds, factored in the potential loss of a fallopian tube and taken the medication. But before even meeting her I had blind faith in my daughter. The doctors went on to treat me badly, condescend to me, keep me in the day surgery ward to attempt to scare me into taking it before they relented and got me in for a follow-up ultrasound. I laid on that ultrasound table, and sobbed, and begged God again to hear me.

Obviously since E is here with us today (and is nearly two years old!), I know God did hear me. What I remember most about the long test of faith that was my first pregnancy however, is when I was lying in bed nights, or in the hospital hooked up to fluids because my HG was out of control, or on ultrasound table after ultrasound table promising to have a more open heart and to be a better person if my sweet girl could just live.

And all I could say when E was born and first handed to me was, "You're safe. Thank you, thank you.". I didn't have the heart to tell my doula, the nurses or my doctor who all politely smiled their, "you're welcome" 's that my thanks wasn't for them.

Faith as a Mom

Now as a mom of two busy girls under two I have time for almost nothing. The vacuuming is forever half-done, the dishwasher that I don't have the time to gut keeps spitting out dishes rife with water spots, E's curly red hair is often wild and sometimes I even forget to brush their teeth/K's gums. But at night, when the three loves of my life are sleeping, I am always sure to give thanks for having had them another day. I try (because faith still doesn't come easily to me) to have faith that things will work out the way they are meant to. I have faith often more for my children than for myself. I want them to exist in a sphere where God exists, I want them to be able to take comfort in the idea that everything is part of a bigger picture. Whether they find that in a monotheistic deity, a philosophical concept or within themselves, I hope they find faith. And some days its hard to enforce that ideal in myself because I'm tired or because terrible things are happening in the world and I wonder where God is...

"K", Photo credit to Jessica McBride

And then I remember.