-
A year before I started self-defense and karate, I would
have laughed in your face if you said I could ever be graceful and skilled
enough to do martial arts.
- A few years into martial arts, and I would have laughed at you if you suggested I would ever become a black belt, train hundreds of kids or teach battered women at half way houses.
- A year before high school graduation, I would have laughed at you if you said I’d ever walk into a Christian church again.
- A year into college, I would have laughed in your face if you said I would stop working with wildlife and never work as a scientist.
- A year after college, I would have laughed if you said I’d be a scientist ever again.
- A year into seminary and I would have laughed at you if you told me I’d never work in campus ministry, but become a hospice chaplain and love it.
- A year into seminary, I would have laughed if you suggested I'd consider any PhD work in Pastoral Theology and not Biblical Studies.
- A year into seminary I would have laughed at you if you told me someday I’d feel compelled to choose between academic goals and starting a family.
- A year before I graduated from seminary, I would have laughed in your ear if you said I'd be married a few months after graduation.
- Two years ago I would have laughed in your face if you told
me I would let go of my dream to be pregnant.
- A year ago I would have laughed at you if you suggested that I may be able to go back to school for my PhD.
What isn’t in between those lines of incredulity is the turmoil
of blood, sweat, tears, laughter, pain, sorrow, joy, loss, gain, and ever
continuous cycle of change.
I don’t think that as a young idealist intent on changing
the world I had any clue the amount of heartache change entails. When I look at
this list, there are goodbyes and heartache cracked through all the
accomplishment and growth. There are life-threatening diagnoses that resolved but
left ghosts behind, there are relationships born and relationships shattered. There
are epiphanies of great transcendence and epiphanies of profound despair. I see
the world through fresh eyes every day. I see with increasing clarity and increasing
murkiness the tension between how finite and limited our experience is and how
infinite and expansive the universe is.
We all make choices about how our life will proceed, even if
by passive means. However, I’m not sure I ever chose a passive way to discern
my life’s path since I was born. I fight and struggle and attempt to make
meaning in places no seed would normally grow. Each of these milestones that
seemed so impossible is stacked on top of hard life experiences, lessons that
left profound influence upon my soul. To become empowered and grow, something
else had to be released, let go.
As I face my current life change, there is a difference. I
had no qualms about the choice I made to start a family. I knew that I wanted
to have enough time outside of my career/calling to focus on my personal
commitments of family and community. But so many of the options were eliminated
from my list of choices until it felt there were no choices left to be made. I would trade the heartache and despair I feel
instantly for the my denied dreams of a
life filled with meaning from hands-on ministry and hands-on birthing and
child-raising. I would give up in a heartbeat the thoughts of PhD work, the
path of growth and discovery this will bring if I could just have the dreams of
feeling a baby grow inside me, the sight of a child with my husband’s eyes and
ginger hair.
But first we must unclasp our grip around the emptiness it
held to be open to receive the gift we will be given.
Oh how much time and sorrow are wasted on clasping our fist
around emptiness, nothingness, the if-onlys and why-nots, the lack of choice,
banging our head on the impenetrable wall blocking our path. Imagine the
tension, the energy exerted to keep a fist clenched. Imagine how much more it
cramps without anything to hold onto, the nails biting into the palm of your
hand. Imagine the slow burn of releasing cramped muscles, the amount of effort
it takes to relax them and release that tension. It is painful, but it is also
a release from pain. It burns and aches and bites. But oh, how much sweet
relief there is upon loosening it, unfurling the fingers and stretching the
hand. The muscles are not used to it, though. It is so easy to close that hand
again to grasp at nothing, to grasp too soon or to flinch at contact.
So now I place the idea of pursuing my academic dreams in my
palm, like a beautiful seed. I hold it and observe how light it feels to me
compared to the clenched fist, how right it feels in my palm. Tentative touches
and attempts to plant the seed are interspersed with comedic yet devastating
Buster Keaton antics. I clench with grief and it slips from my fingers. I try
to plant it and I kick it onto a rock or slip in the mud. I clench my hand
around it, not giving it up despite my fist wanting to clench, and it bruises
my palm. I release my grasp and it falls. I try to pick it up and the wind
rolls it away from me. A merry dance a dream will give you if that path has
bumps of grief.
I have said goodbye to dreams before. I have compromised,
found alternatives and substitutes. And this dream I am attempting to let go
has no real replacement. There is only letting go. I will have a family always.
I will have children, but they will not be from my womb. I have purpose and
meaning and hope. But it looks nothing like it did 6 months ago.
With each step I take and with each attempt to hold that new
seed, I release the pain and say goodbye to a dream.
