Healing and Growth in Marriage and Mothering
Marriage and mothering are two areas that bring us the highest of our highs but also the lowest of all our lows, which presents perfect opportunities for us to discover healing and growth in our marriage and mothering.
If you’re a wife and a mother, you’ve undoubtedly experienced some hard days.
There’s no question you’ve walked around with a smile on your face and pain in your heart. And not a soul knew.
Talking about our fears, failures, heartbreaks, unmet expectations, loneliness, overwhelm, sadness, disconnection, disappointments, etc. is a scary thing to do.
These are topics we typically avoid discussing with much vulnerability, especially when we’re struggling.
I took this picture on a beautiful but cold morning last winter, while leaning out a window in our house.
Unpacking the Boxes of Our Past
Recently, I went through my closet. It holds more boxes of memories than it does clothes.
As my kids grew, they often brought me “treasures” and asked me to put them in their memory box. The older they got, the more boxes showed up. I added lots of things I wanted to save as well.
So, these boxes are full of:
-memories from life pre-marriage: yearly pocket calendars written in miniscule handwriting by a girl-woman who filled in the daily squares with surface details of communal living
-a storage tub full of wedding memories, now yellowed by age
-the itty-bitty newborn clothes each of my babies wore home from the hospital
-artwork from their childhoods
-their earliest tries at writing
-made with love (and some glimpses of talent) birthday cards and mother’s and father’s day gifts
-sports awards and newspaper clippings of their academic and athletic achievements
-cherished letters from my dad, who has now gone to Jesus
A Cold Day’s Reflection on Life’s Challenges
And these two pictures. I vividly remember these being taken. Seeing them took my breath away.
It was a cold, windy Alaskan winter day, just after a Sunday service outside the middle school where our church held their meetings.
And I was freezing!
Yet, what grabbed me was the recollection that my body wasn’t the only thing freezing. I was emotionally and spiritually frozen as well. These photos were taken at the height of my struggles and distress.
When this picture was taken, I was freezing, not just physically but emotionally and spiritually as well. This was during some of my darkest days.
The Emotional and Spiritual Freeze
My marriage seemed broken beyond all hope of restoration. Our differences seemed too many. Our emotional distance too far for any bridge to span.
I felt completely in over my head mothering that adorable little guy in the front who kept me in a constant state of mothering anxiety and self doubt.
Our family many years ago.
I was worried too that our very reserved middle child felt unseen and overshadowed by the genuine needs of her brothers. I was concerned she was just getting the leftovers from mom. And there wasn’t much left of me at that point.
Our oldest son was standing there trying to smile through the pain of a concussion and fractured back.
My entire life felt fractured.
Shattered, actually.
I was lonelier than I had ever been, despite attending one of the largest Christian churches in my area. It was a loneliness related to how isolated I felt in my marriage and in mothering a highly intelligent, intuitive past his years, demanding-yet extremely sensitive, precocious youngest child. My others were intelligent, thoughtful, loving kids too, but nothing I had faced with them had prepared me for mothering my youngest.
In addition, I’d just been diagnosed with early stage breast cancer.
Navigating Through Life’s Storms
These and other powerful life storms had wreaked havoc on my world, leaving me questioning spiritual beliefs I’d once held in absolute certainty.
As with everyone facing daunting life challenges, these were just the highlights. There were “lesser” things, which in different times would have been plenty stressful if I’d had any capacity left for stress.
But I didn’t.
When you look at these pictures, though, you can’t see any of this. And if we’d talked that day, you wouldn’t have heard of those struggles.
Like I said, we tend to “hide” much of the pains and sorrows in our marriage and mothering. We are hesitant to talk about them with any real specificity.
Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
We need understanding and safety to truly unburden ourselves of our pain and struggles. And both can sometimes be difficult to find.
Silent Struggles In the Christian Community
Sadly, this can be true within the Christian community as well.
Christianity teaches Jesus is enough.
This is often presented as- period. End of story.
If Jesus is enough, what is left to say?
What do you do when, believing in Jesus, your life is still full of distress, pain, and struggle; yet Jesus doesn’t seem to make much of a difference?
If you’re brave enough to ask this out loud, often what comes back is…
if you haven’t found Him to be enough, that’s on you.
It’s not usually put so bluntly. Nevertheless, that’s the message.
Which becomes one more “problem” to add to your growing pile.
Many people find it uncomfortable to hear of the intense trials, hardships, and pain in another’s life. We’re usually quick to look for a reason that would make all that “bad” make sense.
This often involves placing some kind of judgement or false responsibility onto the shoulders of the already hurting person.
It’s distressing when life’s struggles challenge our belief in God’s truth, ability, faithfulness, justice, mercy, etc…
Put another way, our belief that Jesus is enough.
In Christian circles, there is often a lot of shame for a person who finds that Jesus isn’t “enough” in the pain and struggle they’re walking through.
The Real Ordeal of Mother Fear
Then there’s the very real ordeal of Mother fear. The almost animalistic, visceral experience that cripples all logic or reason. It’s so loud; it’s impossible to think of anything but what it’s saying. Then there’s the kind that sinks into the pit of your stomach and smolders there. Just waiting to burst into flame the second you think of a particular struggle or challenge regarding one of your children.
If fear is a lack of faith, or us playing into the devil’s hand, giving him power over us or our children (both things taught in many Christian circles) why would we readily admit our mothering fears to anyone?
If through sharing our marital struggles, they somehow “become” lack of surrender, an independent spirit, not being submitted enough to our husband or a lack of faith in God’s ability and faithfulness to move on our behalf (again, all things heard in Christian circles) why would you share?
Christian or not, it can still be hard to share
But, maybe you’re not a Christian, or Christianity isn’t your background. Talking about your marriage or mothering struggles can still be genuinely difficult.
Who could you tell that would make any difference, anyway?
You already know that joining a group of friends airing marital “grievances” or mothering frustrations might feel good in the moment, but it rarely produces solutions that bring you genuine relief.
The Complexity of Healing and Growth in Marriage and Motherhood
Relationships are complex and intricate, multidimensional, like a 4D picture.
This complexity can make talking about them difficult.
Our internal distress can cause many issues- physical, emotional, behavorial and cognitive.
Headaches/migraines, muscle tension, digestive issues, sleep issues. Irritability, anxiety, depression, overwhelm. Concentration and memory problems. Avoidance or other behavioral changes.
Even ones as consequential as convincing ourselves in order to live a thriving, happy life, we need to end our marriage.
Which may or may not be true.
In actuality, we need our pain to end. Two very different things.
The Common Outcome of Unresolved Distress
Probably, though, the more common result of unresolved internal distress is being physically present but emotionally disconnected. Our bodies are present, but we’ve checked out in every other way.
We go through the motions in our marriage and mothering, but neglect to provide genuine presence or nurturing to either.
Our kids tumble up as best they can while learning to leave mom alone because it’s “another of mom’s bad days.”
While our marriage slowly shrivels into a shadow of what we once had.
For too many wives and mothers, scenarios similar to these are very real.
They definitely were for me.
The sun reflecting off the ice on a cold autumn morning during my daily walk.
A Journey Towards Healing and Growth
Fortunately, a couple of months after these photos were taken, my internal struggles motivated me to take a journey of soul healing and personal growth (maturity), which I’m still pursuing today.
Not because I’m so terribly broken, as I once thought I was. But because life’s complexities and complications call for both maturity and soul healing in order to navigate them successfully.
Raising children from babyhood to fully functioning emotionally, mentally, and spiritually healthy adults requires a substantial amount of personal maturity, along with a strong emotional, mental, and spiritual health of our own.
As does having a healthy, vibrant, mutually satisfying marital relationship.
Understanding the Need for Personal Growth and Healing
I realized that, despite my trying to pretend it wasn’t so, not all my problems originated from my husband or children. I genuinely needed to grow/mature and find soul-healing in order to be the woman, wife, and mother I wanted to be.
None of us had perfect childhoods or parents; and we’re all born with tendencies that can make life harder for us, particularly if those tendencies, or our unhealed places and immaturity, are left unattended.
The Misleading Assumptions We Make
One other thing these pictures reminded me, most poignantly, of is that what we assume about something or someone isn’t always true.
Unfortunately, assumptions can make it hard to open up, reach out and say…
I am freezing.
I am dying inside and although I have all the seemingly ‘right’ ingredients for a beautiful life…I don’t actually have one.
That kind of vulnerability is hard and scary.
Vulnerability: A Path to Healing and Growth
But, unless light penetrates our dark places, no growth will come. No healing can happen. Nothing can disrupt the trajectory we’re currently traveling.
Do your “photos” tell one story but your reality another?
Do you have the “right” ingredients for a beautiful life, yet struggle, especially in your marriage and/or motherhood, to have one?
You’re not alone! Don’t give up hope.
I understand if it feels too complicated. Hopeless. Unchangeable. Beyond restoration.
But feelings have never been a good indicator of truth.
They can be fickle. They’re unreliable and they can lie to us.
Sometimes, changing our situation or circumstances either can’t be done, or we decide it shouldn’t be done.
Does that mean we’re stuck? Does it mean that what we currently have is all we get?
NO! Absolutely not!
Embracing the Journey of Healing and Personal Growth
I won’t pretend that the journey of soul healing and personal growth (maturity) is quick or necessarily easy, because both growth and healing take time, and usually hurt some. And it’d be silly to promise that because you heal and grow, you’ll end up with the life of your dreams.
Again, life is complex, full of challenges, and the future is unknown.
What I can assure you is you don’t have to continue to live with a smile on your face but turmoil and pain in your heart. You don’t have to wait for your circumstances to change in order to fully live.
Finding Courage to Heal and Grow
When I look at the younger me in these pictures, I feel so much gratitude.
She found the courage to get off the painful yet familiar path she was on and change the direction her story was headed.
In doing so, the trajectory of not only my story, but that of my children and family changed too.
Encouragement For Your Journey
Be encouraged! If I can do it, I’m confident you can as well!
Sometimes, all we need is an encouraging cheer and someone to shine a bit of light on a dark path. If this post does that, I’m thankful.
I’d love to hear your story and if this was helpful. Comment below or email me at Sarah@herheartathome.com.
Wrapping This Up
That was a really long post about some serious stuff.
Kudos to you for sticking it out to the end!!
Today’s family favorite is one of my personal favorites. I love these on a dark winter’s morning with my coffee. You can find the recipe here.
Until next time,
Sarah
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