someone else’s dream

I am living the dream, but it belongs to someone else. 

This is the lie that discontentment whispers: sure, this is good, but it’s not good for you. Sure, technically you’ve been blessed, but not really because you never asked for these so-called blessings. Maybe my life looks like it should be full of joy, but it’s okay that I’m dissatisfied, because the gifts I’ve been given were really meant for someone else.

I never thought I’d be the woman in the suburbs with two kids, a Goldendoodle, and a Tahoe. And it’s okay that I am, but it’s not as though my desires shifted and now where I am is where I eventually longed to be. I didn’t get what I wanted because my wants changed; I got what the Lord gave me, despite my disordered wants and misshapen longings.

A few years ago, I read Gloria Furman’s Missional Motherhood, and while most of the book’s content is lost in the blur of toddlerhood and sleep deprivation, I do recall one shard of wisdom: every woman is a mother. Before that book, I would have said that God has not called all women to motherhood, but Gloria argues that he has, as best I recall. Unmarried women may not have children biologically, but they can still mother someone. Childless women may not experience the fruit of the womb, but there are still people in the world for them to mother. Mothering is womanly.

God has made me to mother, whether I like it or not. Mothering means silencing the voice in my own head to listen to the voice of someone else, who often stutters or rambles or repeats the same questions over and over. Mothering means shelving the dreams I’d nursed and considering the dreams of someone else, not just temporarily, but for the long haul. Mothering means the life I’d envisioned for myself will not happen, and that is a good thing.

Without children, where would I be? Working in an office instead of spraying skid-marked underwear with Bac-Out. Eating dinner at the restaurant downtown, the new one with the chef from one of our old go-tos, instead of rolling sticky ground lamb into trays of meatballs. Walking alone, listening to my thoughts, my gaze allowed to drift, instead of squeezing the hands of children who may or may not dart into the street, at a glacial pace that will never count for exercise. Maybe I’d sleep more. Maybe I’d read more. I’m sure I’d watch more TV, and definitely movies. I could spend money on myself instead of the people constantly losing socks and ripping holes in pajamas pants and outgrowing their shoes. I could see a friend and not with tiny people shrieking in the background, slicing my attention in half. I could trade the children for the ease, but there would be an insidious selfishness that would weave its way into my life, into my heart. There would be more comfort, but it would be lifeless.

This is why I’ve come to agree with Gloria: whether or not I have my own children, I don’t have my own life. It never belonged to me. I was always bought and paid for; having babies merely clarified that reality. Before I was a mother, it was far easier to keep God on Sundays and in early morning quiet times. To believe that the bulk of my life was actually mine. Now that I have children, I see it: this work, this mundane and sometimes infuriating work, is holy and good. This giving up of myself is sanctifying.

In marriage, some may secretly nurture the idea that sex with someone else would be fun, or question the goodness of God in commanding lifelong fidelity. In a similar vein, I’m tempted to consider my life without children in it. And while the picture is beautiful—a life studded with international travel, with jaunts to the Caribbean to lay in the sun and sip terrible white wine and read fiction, with the land I’ve always wanted to purchase and the time needed to spend plowing it and gardening it—it is flat and empty. It’s vacuous. It’s meaningless. There is no purpose and no hope. 

Motherhood has flung me into a world where I am not innately gifted. Motherhood forces me to consider, at the end of the day, not how productive was I? but how well did I love, teach, nurture, listen, train these little people? Motherhood will not allow me to look at the work of my hands and feel good about my accomplishments, because there isn’t anything to see. Instead, I’m stuck scouring my own heart, trying to discern why I lack patience and compassion for the people I’m responsible to care for. Maybe motherhood is not fun, and maybe I feel as though I cannot use any of my natural giftings in this season.

But maybe that is a blessing. Maybe this isn’t the life I wanted, but that’s because it’s more glorious than the one I’d envisioned. Instead of something shallow and purposeless, I’ve been given a life of depth, long-term responsibility, and strange joy. 

It is a good thing to have children, whether you want babies or not. This is what I’ve come to realize. Children are not just a blessing when they’re on your agenda or a dream in your heart; they’re a blessing always. 

And I’m thankful for mine.