First Day of Spring & Being a Mother

Sometimes, things just take time.

You need to hold a secret close to your chest, veiled and kept safe, for just a little while longer.

Timing like this is something no one else ever understands.

It's always too soon, or not soon enough.

But the weight of it is your own.  And you alone know how to carry it, how far you can last with it on your shoulders.

One morning, though, you will wake up.  Knowing, quietly, that it's this day.

Some things just take time.


I was carrying this secret long before I was even aware of it.

Somehow prepared, somehow unsurprised.  I've been carrying it for longer than anyone else has known.

Giving myself time, though not nearly enough, to process and to absorb.

We may never fully wrap our mind around, no matter how much time we take.

And so I'm here to tell you my secret.

I've been practicing saying such words over and over again.

But each time they only sound more strange.

These things, which take such time, are not often received well.

They are not understood.  Not accepted.  Not embraced.

They are difficult to receive, these words.  You have no place ready for them.

But they come, anyway, requiring a stretching of your mind.

And a stretching of your graces.

You will be required to leave with unanswered questions.

To handle a measure of confusion, which may never fully clear up.

To look at me and reframe.  Apply your surprise and your disappointment and your shock to what you already know or don't know about me.  And choose.

Your choosing will take as much time as my secret-telling.

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I've known for over two months now that I am going to be a mother.

I am almost four months pregnant, due in early September, just days after my younger sister and her husband are expecting their first child.

More than likely, at least for a season, I will be a single mother.

I will graduate with my bachelors degree in December, with a four month old baby.

I find out next month whether my child is a boy or a girl.

-

For years and years I have worked with children.  I have mourned over their struggles and hardships, and my heart has broken each and every time I have taken them home.  Such a sharp pain, a reminder they are not truly mine.  Though I call them such.

For years I asked God to give me one of my own.  To raise and love and cherish.

For years I have been writing about living a good story, striving to tell the best story I can with the days I've been given.  Taking risks and listening for a voice, for a word, most can't seem to hear.

Never in a thousand years would I have thought that in 2012, I would add "becomes a single mother" to my timeline.  Never would have I imagined I would become a mother before I became a wife.  Or the idea of being a wife would suddenly become so far-fetched.

But choices and actions lead to results and consequences.  Sometimes, the choices and actions of others impact us and hurt us and scar us in ways we are not responsible for.  Other times, they are the choices and actions we deliberately make and take ourselves, however motivated -- leading us down new highways, through new corridors.  Until we find ourselves here.

Some place we never thought we'd be.

But here I am.

Hearing whispers of a Father's grace and love.

Which, as quiet as they are, overpower the cries and judgment of the rest of the world.

On the buried rhythm of a strong, steady heartbeat, He has whispered clearly, "Anna, I will use this.  Anna, I love this child.  And, Anna, I love you."

And so I love this child.

This child of mine, whom I will love.  Whom I will take home at the end of the night.  Whom I will raise and feed and teach and nurture.

This child who will call me mommy.  


Some things just take time.

Like adjusting to this idea.

Like rebuilding and redirecting my life.

Like learning how to be a parent.

Like building the strength it will take.

But I have time.

And I'm giving you time.

Because you need it.  Like I needed it.

Take it.