Postpartum Bethlehem

From afar, my life looks picturesque; my toddlers eating summer blackberries in the sun, dinner at our wooden table most evenings, my doctor-husband walking through the front door while we hear the pitter-patter of little feet running towards him, horses neighing in our serene neighborhood, and so on. 

From afar, there is absolutely nothing for me to ever complain about. 

Yet, here is the reality you’ll likely never hear from a doctor’s wife—trauma doesn’t care how rich someone becomes, it doesn’t care about your current circumstances or how easy your life appears to others. Postpartum depression is one of the most overlooked diseases of our generation; I suffered from PPD with my firstborn, and had since taken 200mg of Sertraline for three years straight. I also took Abilify for one year. While I won’t go into my past trauma, because that’s not what this is about, parts of my painful past weaved itself into my day-to-day motherhood.

I started yelling in the car while my husband was driving. I can’t quite explain it, but it happened so quickly that I shouted for him to pull over to the dusty side of the road; I walked out, leaving my husband in the car with our not even three-week old. With dust on my white linen pants, I cried like I had never cried before. I think only the cows heard me, as I was completely alone.

Everything erupted in a few waking minutes on a dusty farm road in the countryside; I was tired, frustrated, and lamenting all at once. If you’re a postpartum mother, then you know exactly what I am talking about. It’s the ugly side that other people don’t see except those within the walls of your home. My husband pulled over and came outside to me; he embraced me—dust and all—and loved me through it.

It took me a while to realize that screaming at random in the car wasn’t the godly way to get my husband’s attention. It took me a while to realize that what I was doing was actually destroying our household and it started with me. Not my husband. Not my children. Not my extended family. Not my trauma. The sooner I realized it started with me, the sooner I realized it also ended with me.

I realized I didn’t want to be the reason my household fell. I wanted it to flourish. I realized that I will be the one to stand before God one day and I will have no one to point fingers at, it will be just me—and God—and all the excuses I had for my sin will not stand a chance. 

So, by God’s grace, I started to nourish instead of blame. I repented quicker instead of pointing fingers. The air in our house changed. There was a lot of true repentance and forgiveness instead of bitterness and ugliness.

In Hebrew, Bethlehem is pronounced “Beit” which means house and “Lechem” which means bread, meaning “House of Bread”. As I gazed at my daughter in my arms, I wept remembering Jesus’ words…“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty’” (John 6:35).

I am truly blessed that I can come to The Father in my lament as a weary mother and bring to him my burdens because he cares for me. It’s easy to post on social media your “Christian walk” where others can see…but you’ll rarely see that from me, because I know that’s not what God looks at. It’s in the walls of our home where I’m rocking Belen to sleep, in the washing of sippy cups with stuck straws, in the folding of laundry full of twisted onesies, and teaching my children something new where I can best glorify God. Not because the work is glorifying, but because my heart’s desire is to glorify Christ in all that I do. God sees me. In everything I do and how I love God is reflected in how I love my husband and children.

Isaiah 40:26 says, “Lift up your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one and calls forth each of them by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing.” And if God cares that much for the starry hosts of a night sky I often take for granted, how much more will he care for my journey as a mother to the children he’s gifted us with?

I strive to live holy in a world that can be so easily tempting. At the end of my days, I desire to have pleased God; my life right now is not what the world sees as worthy—I just know when my children are grown and my hair has more grey hairs than not, I won’t wonder about the secular jobs I could have had or the success of doing it all on my own; I will wonder if I truly denied myself and picked up my cross [Matthew 16:24-26].
Did I serve Christ with my one life well?