I was ugly :: 31 days of messy parenting {day 25}

I think I will regret this, putting it out there. It is so much more, so much heavier - wrought with humility - than a witty 31-day-series tag line. Writing down the words, words I've only said to two, maybe three people... writing them here for you to see.

You will judge me, but I feel compelled. I want to see how truth is beauty. Even ugly truth, made beautiful by what happens, what came, how God was in it anyway. The beauty, it's all him. The ugly - that's me.

The truth is, I didn't want him.

I took the test in a fit. Of course, of course. And when the second line turned pink... of course.

We had talked about a third, always wanted a third, even named a third. But I wasn't ready. And I wasn't happy. And this was not the way it was to go.

Ireland was new to us, only a few months old to us. The wheels were greased, turning easier and faster and we were ready to hit our groove and sail right along. I'd been given an assignment, one I felt so proud to deliver on and make mine, one I hadn't even begun yet. I sat in a coffee shop, sick and stressed and hiding our secret.

We were idiots. And now there was a third. And I didn't want him.

This is ridiculous: a married mother of two not liking the timing, the inconvenience of a third child. This is the worst thing: to know how God loves and creates tiny humans for the delight of eternity and to feel so distraught over it. We were (mostly) in love and we were (mostly) able to readily welcome an addition, and yet I was (mostly) in despair, for no other reason than my misguided desire for a life worth something... more.

The not wanting... the not accepting, not thanking, not participating in the life within drained my reservoirs of faith. I was so ashamed. I was so afraid. I was so sure I would not - could not - mother him the way I ought. I was ugly with selfishness. I hid from God.

But... but... of course. Something changed. We grew.

Two months of sickness and stillness makes one think and leads one to pray and allows one to rest in the inconvenient, inefficient nature of God. Around week ten I was nervous and antsy. I began to worry that my not wanting him made him go away. I was in a fit, knew it was too late, wanted to take it all back. We begged to be seen by the local GP (weeks before my first scheduled antenatal appointment in the hospital). We needed to hear it; I had to know.

We heard the heartbeat, and Ella's laughter rang through. 12 weeks along. Then 16. Then 33. Then due date, contraction, labour... a boy. The beauty, it's all him.

The truth is, I was ugly and did not want him. But he was beauty and we named him Asher. Happy.



Are you in this place, dumbfounded - saved - by beauty amidst the ugly?