the Lord is (not) slow

I wrote a post earlier this year about different things God has used to help me understand Himself and His Word. One of them was in anticipation of becoming a mother. I didn’t know what, exactly, God would show me about Himself through this sudden new identity and role, but I knew it would (and will) be plentiful over the coming years and decades.

He has already begun.

There are probably thousands of tiny lessons I could write about, and some big ones taught over and over again, but for the sake of time (it’s the last naptime of the day) I just wanted to record one:

The Lord is (not) slow.

The verse in 2 Peter reads without the parentheses, yes. “The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). And I’m sure Peter doesn’t need my grammatical input to make exactly the point he wanted to make!

But I added the parentheses here because having a baby has shown me that in so many ways a mortal human wouldn’t be, God IS slow. He is not rushed. He doesn’t hurry to get things done in the most efficient way possible.

He is slow. He enjoys the process of doing, creating, being, rescuing.

He didn’t come to rescue His people as a white knight on a white steed to destroy all their enemies with a word (although that will come later—see Revelation 19). He came as a baby.

And while babies certainly grow at an alarming rate, constantly developing in skill and motion and speech and independence, and learning at a pace that they will never replicate later in life—they also take a comparatively long time to be good for much, at least in the way of rescuing.

I try to imagine Jesus newly born, squashed and curled up and red-faced like Clara was. I try to imagine being Mary—did she think, “This is how God is going to rescue His people?!”? I look at Clara, who is just now attempting to roll from her back to her tummy and hasn’t done it without help even once, and I definitely don’t think that’s how I would rescue my people. Why grow a person up for 30+ years before even putting Him into ministry, let alone letting Him do any rescuing? Why not just sweep down and get it done?!

But the Lord is (not) slow.

He may look slow to me, when He chooses relationship over instant results or when He allows for a process rather than waving a magic wand. But in His process there is so much patience—grace—longsuffering—love. There’s a plan. And that’s the only reason I’m here right now, writing this, looking ahead to the celebration of Christmas and the Child that was born to be God With Us… because He is, and at the same time beautifully isn’t, slow.

reflections on the fourth trimester

Clara was born two days after I wrote my last post here—11 weeks ago today. We have one week left of what some people call the “fourth trimester,” when she is separate from my body and yet still constantly attached, when she isn’t getting everything she needs via 24/7 physical connection and yet still kind of is. I don’t expect a switch to flip at the end of the 12th week, but it’s still a little momentous to me that we’re nearly there.

I knew it would be hard. I didn’t know it would be impossible for as long as it was.

I didn’t know I’d spend the first week in a haze of euphoria mixed with pain, or that weeks two and three would feel like existing in a black cloud of despair. I didn’t know I could get so angry at someone so innocent or so worried about someone so small. While other new moms in my Facebook due date group talked about “love at first sight” and “hearts so full,” I felt empty and terrified, like a shell of myself trying to find my way through a labyrinth at midnight all alone, with a tiny dependent creature to keep alive at the same time. I remember thinking so many times, and still do some days, that all I wanted was to go to work—back to a familiar place, simple tasks, clear objectives, and a community of friends.

I know it’s all the rage these days to talk “authentically” about what things like motherhood are “really” like. But I find there’s a sheen of polish on most of those discussions, too, and I think that’s why—even though I was fully prepared for it to be tough and thankless to care for a newborn all day—I was not prepared to do six solid weeks of it with hardly a glimmer of joy. That’s the unpolished truth.

Then she smiled at me intentionally for the first time and what had been impossible finally became just hard. And I can do hard.

Maybe it’s different for the moms who are in love at first sight. Maybe their babies didn’t have an intolerance to dairy that caused them constant pain, or maybe their babies don’t have high palates, preventing them from feeding effectively. Maybe they didn’t go three weeks without sleeping two hours together (because you can only “sleep when the baby sleeps” if the baby actually sleeps). Or maybe they are simply healthier people, holier people, better at doing the impossible.

It’s deeply humbling to see this cavernous lack inside myself. First John 4:19 comes to mind: “We love because He first loved us.” He did the impossible. He sacrificed everything without a glimmer of joy in return, and He did it without succumbing to the exhaustion, the rage, the fear, the desperation. Even if I had never smiled back at Him, He’d have done it all the same.

I wish I had naturally been that mom. As much as I loved her, I wasn’t. As much as I love her today, I’m still not. But I hope I’m getting closer.

it's september

I remember sitting in the doctor’s office in mid-January thinking how far, far away September felt. Half of a very long winter, an entirely unprecedented spring, and most of an exhausting summer lay ahead before I’d meet the baby I had only just learned existed.

Most years, I get to September and wonder where the time has gone. And I still definitely have a sense of “We’re already here?”—but it’s dwarfed a bit by the overwhelming feeling that I’m still powering through the last hundred yards of a marathon. And not just because I’m enormously pregnant. I think 2020 has felt that way for a lot of us, and maybe it’ll be awhile before we catch our breaths.

I have heard from many parents who have gone before me that new babies slow life down, in a way. Things take longer to accomplish. There’s a lot of sitting, feeding, watching. A lot of repetition and routine. I didn’t used to like the sound of that, but after this year of chaos and uncertainty and busyness, I think I’m ready for slow.

Tomorrow is one week away from our due date. Everything is about to change. I tend to hate change, because it usually feels like a tornado ripping through the middle of life—but there have so many such storms in the last few years that I think, or I hope, I’m getting to be a little more resilient. (And with any luck, my cats are, too…)