It’s one of those Mondays, by the time I dropped the kids to school, it felt like noon. I mean, it was a busy morning, started by chasing a neighbor’s dog out of our compound-actually it came right inside the house and refused to get out. Talk of a visitor in the morning.
It was not funny at all….we had to get a watchman to get the dog out.
Anyway, today I am wondering and rethinking about our identity as mothers.
What is our identity founded on?
The fact that we have more children than our neighbors? Well, I have witnessed women sizing each other up because of the children they have and others swearing that they have to get another child because their friend got one too and they cannot outnumber them.
Is it because our children attend a better school?
Is it because some of us breastfed longer than our friends- have you ever seen a woman narrate how long she has breastfed and the good feeling on her face-not that it is bad, but does that give you some sort of identity?
And one like me, who has to justify with facts and figures why they did not breastfeed for long – because of the guilt that weighs heavily on their heart, truly uncalled for.
Is it because everytime your child is on the scale – the numbers are always on the increase. So you feel like you’re doing a good job as a Mum.
Is it because you had a normal birth-making you feel more of a woman than the others who had to go through a C-Section? I have had women swear that the next time-it must be normal after having gone through a C-section, only because we feel like we need to prove our motherhood by the long hours of labour, no pain relievers and the burst of energy we had to push the baby!
Oh- what about-how much did your baby weigh at birth? The pride that comes with saying 3.7, 4.1, and the guilt that comes with 2.1, 2.4- like we had much to contribute to that anyway!
Is it because you are mother and others are not yet?
Well, it I think it very easy for us as mothers to find our identity in what constitutes motherhood and motherhood itself and forget our identity should only be found in Christ.
When the above are challenged by any circumstances, it’s very easy to have our world crumbling down? Sometimes it easy to get entangled trying to prove a point to other mothers because that is what make us feel like we belong.
I used to feel very happy when I would see the scales going up- during my children check up. But at one point, my oldest daughter became so thin (according to my standards) and I did not understand what was happening.
The comments from others-“your child is becoming so thin, what’s happening?,” “And why do you keep giving her milk, is it because you did not breastfeed her!”-Oh my God! I would get into depression because of such comments.
But I later on realized, the problem is not what others say-it is who I am on the inside, it’s the fact that I am not so sure of myself, I would jump up when someone pressed a fear button and hence I would be blown away by every wind of doctrine, comments and ideas.
I am learning to look at Christ, to make him my security, my all in all, to trust him with my failures, my inadequacies, my fears and most of all, to find my identity in Him.
I am who I am because of Christ.
Christ in me, the HOPE of Glory!
