Tag: faith

When it hurts to carry your child

Published on by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

I should have picked some other verse for 2023. Something that has to do with health and victory and success. Instead, I chose a Psalm about suffering and tribulation, and how I need to “be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

Be careful what you pray for. Because not two days into the first year, as I was setting down a bucket of rice, I felt something snap in my lower back and I fell down on my butt with a cry.

“Oh my God, are you OK?” my nanny exclaimed from the dining room. She had heard me crash onto the kitchen floor, and she came rushing over with Tov in her arms.

“I think I tweaked my back, is all!” I replied, getting up. I could feel the instability in my lower back, but I wasn’t in horrible pain.

“You’re doing too much. You need to sit down,” my nanny ordered.

I couldn’t sit. We had moved into an Airbnb while our house undergoes renovations, and I had just lugged two heavy bags of items from our freezer to the Airbnb that needed to be put away. The place was a mess and needed organization. Tov was running out of solid foods and I needed to make more. I haven’t had lunch yet, or even my first cup of coffee.

So I hoped and wished that it wasn’t that big a deal. I took a hot shower. I massaged my back muscles. But as the day went on, I knew I had done more to my back than a slight muscle strain. My torso was all wobbly on top of my hip, and I could feel a dull, throbbing pressure on my lower back.

Oh dear.

The very thing I had been fearful of has happened, and all because of a bucket of rice that wasn’t even 10 pounds. The last time I hurt my back about three years ago, it had taken months to recover. But I had a baby. I didn’t have several months to lay off heavy lifting. Yet each time I picked Tov up or nursed him, I could feel the grinding pressure on my vertebrae.

Hmm.

I found a chiropractor, and she took some X-rays of my back. When she sensed some intense pressure on my neck, she took X-rays of my neck as well. She showed me models of vertebrae in various stages of degeneration. “If you’re here,” she said, pointing to the second vertebrae, “I can help you back to here,” she pointed at the healthy, normal vertebrae. “But if you’re here,” she pointed at the third vertebrae, “I can’t get you back to normal. By then we can only try to prevent you from getting here,” she said, pointing to the fourth vertebrae whose disc had degenerated so much that the bones were jiggedy-jaggedy from rubbing against each other.

Uh-huh. My stubbornly optimistic self immediately assumed I can’t possibly be the third or fourth vertebrae. I expected a full recovery after a few months of recuperation. Annoying, but not a big deal.

I got my test results two days later. The chiropractor marched into the office and once again explained the various stages of disc degeneration to me. I began feeling uneasy– why is she going through this again? And then she announced, pointing at the third vertebrae: “You are here.”

Oh no. Oh no.

I felt my belly sink. She began explaining to me what happens to the disc when it goes through constant wear and tear. How the disc is supposed to act as a jelly-like shock-absorber, and how when it degenerates or oozes out, it no longer protects the spine as well, and how that affects the nerve system, how that affects everything from my thyroids to my digestive system to my wrists. She held up charts in front of me like a lecturer, and I stared blankly at them, not hearing anything she’s saying.

All I could hear was, “If you’re here, I can’t get you back to normal”– and stare at that stupid, broken third vertebrae with the decayed disc.

Turns out, I have degenerative disc disease on my neck, upper back, and lower back. A couple dics on my neck had degenerated enough that the cervical spine was curving the opposite way it’s supposed to. That was triggering the nerves down my arms, which explains why I suddenly can no longer rotate my right wrist without sharp pain. My bad neck is why my back gave out– it was over-compensating from the misalignment in my neck, which then caused a misalignment in my back and hip. It’s not technically a “disease”– everyone has degenerative discs at some point due to aging– but mine is pretty early for a 35-year-old, possibly caused by my young gymnastics/Taekwondo days, two car accidents, the physically grueling task of childbearing and child-rearing, and me constantly cracking my neck and back several times a day for years.

“You probably want to kill me for this news,” my chiropractor said. “Maybe you want to toss me out the window.”

I think she might have said a “but” afterwards with some better news about treatment plans, but I didn’t hear it because all I could hear was a loud buzz of worry– what does this mean? Will I be able to wear and carry Tov like I did before? Will I be able to have a second kid? Will I be able to lift weights again? Run? Carry heavy groceries? Travel? Will I have chronic pain for the rest of my life? Become a hunchbacked cripple?

The chiropractor asked me what I wanted: Did I want to focus on pain relief? Or try a treatment plan to correct the misalignment, though the result is not guaranteed?

“I just want to be normal again,” I said, swallowing back my tears. “I want to be able to carry my baby.”

How strange, when at that moment, every day before the diagnosis suddenly felt like the golden happy days. Post-diagnosis, the future felt bleak and gray. The chiropractor put me on a six-month, 22-treatment plan, open to adjustment if my body doesn’t respond well to it. I hate such uncertainties. I wanted to hear a confident declaration that yes, the treatment will 100 percent work, and you’ll be back to running 4 miles and doing 150-pound leg presses in no time! But I returned home with no such promises and a disheartened heart.

That weekend, David fell sick. He mostly stayed supine in bed, groaning and moaning about his pain while I moved around the house with a back brace, a wrist guard, and ice packs on my neck. Add to that a pumping device and I felt like some kind of barn animal. I had been expecting him to help out more with Tov, but now I had two babies to take care of– one small and cute, the other big and not as cute. As much as I felt sorry for David, I also seethed. Where was help when I needed it? Who’s taking care of me?

That Sunday, we had planned to go out on our first date since Tov was born. David’s cousins had offered to babysit Tov while we went out. They were busy people so we had booked this date a month in advance. Now we had to cancel, and instead of a romantic dinner out, I spent that evening watching Tov while David passed out on the couch.

“Oooh I feel like I’m dying! This is the worst pain I’ve ever felt!” David moaned.

“You’re always saying it’s always the worst pain you ever felt,” I said suspiciously as I made him some hot mint tea, while wincing from the tension around my neck and back. I grumbled to myself that if the male species ever had to go through childbirth labor pains, all of them would probably die off from the pain and go extinct. Or maybe they’ll survive, just so they can live another day to complain, as they seem to enjoy complaining. (But then, if the male species died off, what would the female species have to grumble about? Because I think secretly we women also like to complain about our men.)

Two nights later, as David lay in pain on the couch again, after I had finally put Tov to bed, after I had finished up washing up the dishes, I finally reached my end. My back and neck were killing me. I still had work to do, but how is it already almost 9 pm already?! I felt overwhelmed thinking that this might be my future for God knows how long. I was emotionally and physically exhausted. I just wanted to fling my braces into the garbage disposal and destroy things. All the helplessness and anger and frustration swooshed out into hot salty tears as I gingerly tried to stretch out the knots in my back, feeling like a broken, pathetic creature.

David saw my tears and sat up, alarmed. “You need help?”

Yes. Is there a magic pill to revert my body back to a 22-year-old’s? No? Then you’re useless too!

I swallowed my bitter words. “You could have helped wash the dishes.”

“Oh! Sorry, I didn’t know.”

“I shouldn’t have to ask.”

“Sorry, I thought you were done with the dishes when I was changing Tov’s diaper.”

“My back’s killing me and I don’t feel like it’s getting any better. I feel like it got worse.”

“I’m sorry. How can I help?”

“I actually dread taking care of Tov now. Just nursing him is so uncomfortable. I hate feeling this way.”

“I think you chose a good verse for this year: Be still.”

“Yeah? Be still? Well, I can’t be still when we have a baby!”

I felt this crushing, devastating longing for those childless days when I didn’t have to constantly pour out to someone. I wanted to run. I wanted to hide. I wanted my old life back.

But then I looked at our baby cam. Tov was sleeping on his belly in his crib. I always put him down on his back, but within a minute he always flips over to his stomach. I looked at the soft, fine hair on the back of his head. The tiny side profile of his face, the sliver of eyelashes. The little fists by his side. As much as I earnestly missed the old days, I can’t imagine life without him anymore.

It must be the grace of God for parents, that as exhausted and overwhelmed as we are, every time we look at our child, we get injected with a shot of happy endorphins that help us persist one more day. And that’s all I needed– one little shot of energy to survive this moment, just one more burst of strength to carry on another day, until a new morning.

Be still, and know that I am the Lord. Stop fighting, and know that I am God.

I was fighting, constantly fighting– for control, for production, for the self-rewarding sense of fulfillment of tasks completed and well done, for a lifestyle from the old days that is no longer realistic, for security and comfort. None of those are bad things to desire, but there are times when I’m grasping for too much, too fast, all at once, and I feel like I’m always rushing and huffing after something that’s dancing and skipping away from reach.

Breathe in, breathe out. It is 9:15 pm. Soon, the day will be over, never to come back. In several hours, I will greet another new day.

Breathe in. Be still. Stop fighting. And in the half-minute it takes to breathe out, meet God. That’s all it takes, just like seeing Tov sleep is all it takes to remind me of the joy of motherhood, when motherhood feels like an utter burden.

Lord, you are God. You are the God of the universe. You are my God. I see you. You see me. You made this body that I detest right now, but for all its wear and tear, it got me through this day: I woke up. I carried and nursed Tov. I did the dishes. I finished the day. And tomorrow, it’ll get me through another day. Thank you. Amen.

Entering 2023

Published on by Sophia LeeLeave a comment

On New Year Day, the first day of 2023, David and I began our day with an argument.

It was Sunday, and our church had canceled church service for Christmas and New Year. David and I had found another nearby church that we could attend instead, and I had been excited to check out this church. Except we forgot something: We have a baby who scoffs at our plans.

Church service starts at 10:30. It was 10 am, and Tov decided it was nap time then. We shouldn’t have been surprised– that’s usually when he starts getting extremely fussy and tired. We put him down for a nap. And then came time to make a decision: Do we wake him up mid-nap and risk him being super loud and tired during church service? Or do we skip church and be bad Christians?

David didn’t want to risk it. The church we were visiting is a small church– maybe about 25 people. We are new, and it’s already 10:15, which means we will be late. It would be awkward, he said. What’s more, we had a full day ahead of us: We were renovating the kitchen and bathrooms, so we had to move out to an Airbnb that day, and we really needed Tov to be calm. Can’t we just worship and pray at home instead?

I wanted to go to church anyway. I didn’t care if people stared at us– we have a baby! People will understand. Who cares if we enter late with a screaming baby and people look at us? The point was to be at church. By then I had already missed several church services because of travel. I wanted– needed– spiritual fellowship.

We argued back and forth, and 10:15 became 10:20 and then 10:25. My frustration fizzled out like a shaken Coke bottle. By then, I lost all desire to attend church as well. I was feeling bitchy, being a bitch, and thinking really uncharitable things about my own husband. What’s the point in going to church now? I’ll be carrying into a sanctuary the worst attitude to worship God.

“Forget it,” I snapped. “Let’s just not do church.”

“We can pray,” David offered.

“And who’s going to pray? You?” I spat.

Then Tov woke up. He must have been stirred awake by my sharp, raised voice. And he was hungry.

I took Tov to our room to nurse him. He looked up and smiled at me, oblivious to the turmoil in my heart. I forced a smile on my face.

As I nursed him, I felt like a fraud. What a contradiction– here I was, nurturing and nourishing my child, while inside, the contents of my heart were toxic, chaotic, harsh. I was feeding my child while starving my own soul, and poisoning my husband, the father of my child. This wasn’t a one-time thing– for some time, I’ve noticed myself getting irritable over everything, and the target of my ire was often David.

Meanwhile, Tov looked up at me and smiled and smiled with such adoration.

“You have no idea who your mother is,” I whispered to Tov. He smiled, delighted that I was talking to him. Will he look at me with that same love, even when I inevitably also lose my temper with him one day? Is this the kind of mother I’m going to be to my child? Then I broke down, shaking with silent sobs, overwhelmed by the giant conflict in my soul.

Tov must have sensed something, because he was no longer smiling. He went still and nestled on my lap quietly while I hugged him and wept. “You poor thing,” I said, “You poor thing. You are innocent of all of this.”

We parents often obsess over creating a safe and secure environment for our kids. We have a baby camera. We got a baby-proof gate for the stairway. We will be getting rid of the sharp-edged coffee table once Tov becomes more mobile. Our strollers and car seats come with all these annoying but safety-minded straps and buckles. We even got a dechoker (out of a moment of weakness while watching an ad, in which crying parents thanked the dechoker for saving their baby’s life after he choked on dinner).

But if Tov grows up in a home in which his own parents don’t get along, all those physical safety measures won’t protect him from the trauma of emotional instability and unrest. David and I currently have a good marriage. We get along well and rarely argue. But I could see, if these little tiffs and irritations and flare-ups don’t get corrected along the way, we might end up in a counselor’s room five years down the road, when by then, Tov would have already sensed something is off.

All statistics say that the vast majority of couples report a steep decline in their marital relationship after the arrival of a new baby. Mothers are more likely to report dissatisfaction, often because women tend to become the “default parent.” I already feel like the default parent– and I don’t want to become part of that statistics. Marriage is meant to reflect the love of Christ and his church. I don’t want to model a skewed vision of that for Tov. I don’t want to introduce any impediments to his relationship with God.

As I held Tov and reflected on my own heart, I thought of the verse I had pinned for 2023: “Be still, and know that I am the Lord.” Well, if this isn’t confirmation that this was the right verse for me this year. I took a deep breath and tried to quiet my soul, and be still in the Lord. I kissed Tov’s forehead, and thought of God kissing my own forehead. I caressed Tov’s brow, and thought of how I used to caress David’s brow. I looked at Tov’s handsome face, and remembered how handsome I think my own husband is, how beautiful and perfect a creature we created together.

And then I got up and sat next to David on the couch.

While I had my moment with God, David had his, and his eyes were red and wet as well. He had just read Psalm 51. He turned on some soft instrumental worship music his mother used to love. He shared what he heard from God, and I shared mine. We apologized to each other, and then we hugged and kissed– a group hug between David, Tov, and me.

Tov, crushed between us, squealed and giggled. Even at 7 months old, I notice that Tov loves it when David and I are together, when we show affection to each other. It’s incredible and awe-striking, what an infant can sense at a time when he can barely express himself. Truly, God’s design for marriage and family is real and beautiful. And it’s amazing that He uses a little 7-month-old to remind me of that.

Seasons

Published on by Sophia Lee1 Comment

The first time I was hospitalized, I was 17, a soon-to-graduate high school senior. I was struggling with anorexia but refusing to admit it. I weighed barely a few pebbles above 60 pounds, and my parents and I had just signed the papers to discharge from the hospital against doctor’s orders.

My family and I walked out of the hospital that late afternoon to meet a golden sun, but inwardly, our souls were quivering under a hailstorm. It’s hard to imagine how my parents were feeling at the time. I know how I was feeling, though. I faced the situation with willfully blind eyes– pretending I didn’t really have a problem (“Oh well, I just need to eat a bit more, that’s all!”); pretending I wasn’t terrified of my future, which seemed so dark and exhausting; pretending I had more willpower and courage than I truly had. We left the hospital with forced smiles but dank eyes. And as we walked out of the hospital doors, my abba remarked, “The only people leaving this hospital happy are mothers with their newborn child.”

For some reason, that comment stayed with me all these years. Perhaps it was because I was so depressed that day, that I couldn’t fathom the joy of a mother bringing home a new baby, and the juxtaposition was so jarring, so unimaginable, that it stuck.

So the day I was discharged from the hospital holding Tov in my arms, as morbid as it sounds, I thought of abba’s remark, and thought of how the situation had flipped: Now I was the one leaving the hospital with joy, while in the same hospital, some other family was leaving it with dread and sorrow. How unpredictable life is– yet how seasonal it is as well. Like Ecclesiastes reminds us, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens.”

I can currently in a season of mundaneness. Every day is the same– slow, boring, mind-numbing, yet gone in a blink. What day is it today again? Oh yes, Monday. Same as Tuesday, and Wednesday, and Thursday, and Friday. Each day I wake up to repeat the same manual labors of motherhood: make coffee while Tov cries for milk, feed him, change him, play with him, fruitlessly attempt to get him to nap in his crib; repeat. When friends ask me how I’m doing, I honestly don’t really know what to say. Fine? I am physically and mentally tired, but I’m not unhappy. Neither am I dancing with joy. I am alive, my husband is alive, my baby is alive. We live, therefore we are well.

Tov was particularly fussy today. He cried and yeowed and wailed and whined and really struggled to sleep. He cried on his play mat. He cried on the bouncer. He cried in my arms. I eventually managed to calm him down into a cat nap by wearing him and singing to him.

I don’t know why, but as I swayed him to sleep, I sang to him a song that I used to sing daily to myself when I was a single 29-year-old living alone in a studio apartment with a cat. It’s called “Satisfied in You” by The Sing Team, a hymn rendition of Psalm 42. Here’s the music video version of it:

I remember when I listened to this song on repeat each day, sometimes singing it to myself, sometimes humming it in my head. Here are the lyrics:

I have lost my appetite
And a flood is welling up behind my eyes
So I eat the tears I cry
And if that were not enough
They know just the words to cut and tear and prod
When they ask me “Where’s your God?”

Why are you downcast, oh my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
I can remember when you showed your face to me

As a deer pants for water, so my soul thirsts for you
And when I behold Your glory, You so faithfully renew
Like a bed of rest for my fainting flesh
I am satisfied in You

When I’m staring at the ground
It’s an inbred feedback loop that brings me down
So it’s time to lift my brow
And remember better days
When I loved to worship You and learn Your ways
With the sweetest songs of praise

Why are you downcast, oh my soul?
Why so disturbed within me?
I can remember when you showed your grace to me

As a deer pants for water, so my soul thirsts for You
And when I survey Your splendor, You so faithfully renew
Like a bed of rest for my painting flesh
I am satisfied in You

Let my sighs give way to songs that sing about your faithfulness
Let my pain reveal your glory as my only real rest
Let my losses show me all I truly have is you
‘Cause all I truly have is You

So when I’m drowning out at sea
And Your breakers and Your waves crash down on me
I’ll recall Your safety scheme
You’re the one who made the waves
And Your Son went out to suffer in my place
And to tell me that I’m safe

So why am I down?
Why so disturbed?
I am satisfied in You

I am satisfied in You
I am satisfied in You
I am satisfied in You
I am satisfied in You

It’s a strange song to sing to a wailing child whose only real suffering is when his mother makes him wait while she makes coffee or cooks dinner. It’s also a strange song to sing when I am neither downcast nor disturbed. It made perfect sense when I was 29 though, when I woke up feeling downcast and went to bed feeling lonely. At that time, I sang it because I needed to sing out the things I believe in: That God is faithful, that I am satisfied in Him, that I can rest in Him, no matter how I feel.

But today, as a 34-year-old tired mother, I sang this song once again as though I was blowing the dust off an old photo album: “Why are you downcast, oh my soul?….I can remember when You showed Your face to me. So it’s time to lift my brow and remember better days when I loved to worship You and learn Your ways with the sweetest songs of praise… I am satisfied in You. I am satisfied in You.”

“I can remember when You showed Your face to me.” “I can remember when You showed Your grace to me.” I can remember…I can remember.

I can remember the seasons of winter when I clung onto God out of desperation– those days of struggling with anorexia; then the days when I was single and lonely and sleeping more hours than was healthy; and of course the day David’s mother died and the many tearful days after that. I can remember the seasons of spring when I sang exuberant praises to God– those hopeful, wonderful, anxious days of dating and romance; of being engaged and planning a wedding; the first morning making pancakes as newlyweds; the slow-bubbling excitement and anticipation of our firstborn.

And what season am I in now? I suppose it’s like the dog days of summer, when your brain is fried from the heat and the sun’s glare is dimming your senses into a daze, when the days are slow and long and sweaty. Such are the times when it’s most difficult to remember. It’s a time when your passion and zeal for God wilt like spring flowers under the summer sun. When the Bible sits unopened, when your prayers feel dry and sterile, when you’re just going through the motions of life and faith.

Of course, there are legit reasons for feeling that spiritual lethargy. Motherhood has its sweet blooms of joy, but it’s also– at least for me– like swaying through a fog. My mind has not felt clear and crisp since…I can’t remember. My body is not my own, my time is not my own, my attention is not my own. I am constantly distracted and scattered like Tov’s things all over the living room.

So it was a jarring memory to sing “Satisfied in You” while jiggling our fussy child in my bedroom. And I remembered. Every season, whether sunny or stormy, I can remember God was present. I can remember that He was faithful. I can remember that “God has made everything beautiful in its time” as Ecclesiastes declares, and as He has demonstrated to me, time and time again.

That season when I left the hospital as an anorexic high school senior was in its own way beautiful. It watered seeds with bitter tears that bore the sweetest fruits. That season when I left the hospital holding a sleepy, two-day-old Tov was beautiful. This new human life, even with a scrunchy frowny tantrummy face, is so beautiful beyond words.

And today, drab as it seems, mundane as the hours are, tired and numb as I am, is beautiful. Today, I remember all the other seasons God walked me through, and I remember His grace and His face. So today I rest. Today, I am satisfied in Him.