The Joyful Burden of Motherhood

Tonight I cried for my son. He is seven years old and oh, how he struggles in school and consequentially in his emotions. I cried because tomorrow he will be evaluated for dyslexia and other learning disorders. It is an evaluation that comes after a seven month wait list, years of speech therapy, six months of vision therapy, and a year of six days a week reading intervention. Tomorrow is his evaluation and two days later he is supposed to start 2^nd grade and I’m worried sick whether he should or repeat 1^st grade. Research supports both options. Research condemns both options. Only I can make the right decision for my child. This evaluation is the final deciding factor.

And my child misplaced his glasses. Not only do they help his eyesight, but they help his confidence—a necessity for the four hour assessment he will face tomorrow.

We’ve turned the house and cars upside down. We’ve called restaurants and friends’ houses. They are gone. And the sands of the hourglass are almost gone.

UPDATE: My neighbor found his glasses in their basement prior to the assessment!

So my tears fell and he didn’t understand why I was so sad. It was so much more than buying a replacement pair. He went to sleep unphased as I sobbed in my office, on my knees before God. It is something I have done many times in this boy’s life.

First, as I prayed for God to bless my hopes for another baby to carry, nourish, and cherish in my womb.

Then again, eighteen weeks into my pregnancy as pains shot through my abdomen, reminiscent of my three prior miscarriages, I prayed for him. I pleaded for God to intervene and save my child.

From the time he was just nine months old until he was two-and-a-half, I cried to God to help him learn to pronounce ANY of the consonant sounds. I begged God to help my frustrated toddler who tried so hard to speak to us.

As a preschooler, when he would scream at me because he couldn't distinguish between a triangle or circle or an A from an S, I came to God in my helplessness.

Now I plead for my sweet and loving son who is ravaged by anger because he thinks he is dumb (even though he can build a 700 piece Avengers Lego set by himself). I cry for my child who doesn’t understand how everyone else in his class can decipher these letters and words and feels isolated even as his many friends gather around him to help him.

The burden to be the mommy he needs is great. His advocate. His protector. His interventionist. And I feel so inadequate. I don’t know the lingo or his rights. Even the things I thought I knew, such as how to comfort my child or ease his fears, seem inadequate in the presence of such mighty challenges.

Motherhood is not for the faint of heart. It is as brutal and painful as it is beautiful and life-giving. I once heard is said that choosing to become a mother is like choosing to have your heart walk around outside your body. Just as we have the honor of sharing every joy and excitement in their lives, we also bear every insult, fear, worry, insecurity, and frustration that they endure.

This burden is great. But it is a joyful burden because I can look back and see the triumphs. I remember how it felt to discover I was expecting him and how grateful I was to finally hold him in my arms, living and breathing in the delivery room. I remember the joy of finally hearing him say the m-sounds in Mommy and when he finally learned every shape and every letter.

Those times I’m reminded that God is watching over my Jonathan.  He loves him even more than I do. He is a better advocate, protector and interventionist than I am. He sees him. Just as he saw Ishmael’s life withering away in the desert to the soundtrack of his mother’s weeping, and rescued him, he sees my child. With the love of a father, he sees him. And he sees me, the weeping mother. I am Hagar and He is the God Who Sees Me. He reminds me that this joyful burden of motherhood is a blessed calling--one that I love and cherish, but thankfully don’t have to carry alone.