Lamentations in modern mom culture encourage us to find beauty in the mess. Influencers tell us we’ll gain endurance when we verbalize the good around us with gratitude: “Just be positive. You might be having a hard time getting back on your feet and finding joy after baby, but try to enjoy it anyway— you’ll cherish these years someday.”
We’re tempted to look forward to what’s next, fixing our eyes on the prize—the end of the transition. We tell ourselves “This pregnancy is hard, but it will all be better when the baby gets here” or “Moving with a toddler feels chaotic, but we’re almost to our forever home. Then we’ll be settled.”
But what happens if the pregnancy doesn’t produce a healthy baby? What happens when the child has a medical issue and never sleeps through the night? What happens when the house sale falls through or your husband loses his job? Rooting our hope in our circumstances is always dangerous. So is thinking, “This is my last transition. Once this is over, we’ll finally be happy.”
Gratitude and positive thinking in the moment is helpful, but it doesn’t overshadow all the pain. Looking forward to future events (outside of God’s promises) gives relief when things turn out as we hope, but they don’t come with a guarantee. We need something that makes all of this worth it, giving us life when things feel like death, providing purpose when our days seem pointless, acknowledging wounds while providing an infinitely better word for our difficult seasons. As hard as it is to remember, we endure for the hope set before us, trusting that God has a greater purpose than the struggle we see today.
A Better Thing to Look Forward To
We’re right to look forward to something better, but we’re often wrong about what that is. We don’t just need to hang on until the end of this transition—until we’re sleeping through the night again, until we’re more familiar with the school routine, or until we unpack our moving boxes. Rather, we need to hang on until we meet Jesus face to face, finding joy and purpose in the meantime.
In the tale The Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegory of the Christian life, the main character, Christian, goes on a journey from the City of Destruction to the Celestial City. [10] Along the way, he meets trials of various kinds—people who try to persuade him to stray from the narrow path, people who try to satisfy him with
worldly pleasures, creatures who try to imprison and defeat him with lies and despair. Each trial is followed by a period of rest or refreshment. He experiences the joy of encouragement and fellowship with other believers, but he nearly drowns on the last leg of the journey as he crosses the river to the Celestial City.
Stories like this remind us that our goal in life is not simply to survive this current hard thing in hopes that it will be our last. Rather, we endure whatever God has for us to the very end, believing God’s promises even when we can’t see the outcome.
God doesn’t promise our current hard season or transition will end the way we want it to, but he does promise he’ll be with us all the way through it. He’ll provide strength, refreshment, and encouragement until we reach our final point B, where we’ll never experience sorrow again. [11] Just as he provided an oasis for the tired, thirsty Israelites on their journey in the desert, he can provide refreshment in our transitional times when we cry out to him in faith. [12]
In my season of morning sickness, young children, moving boxes, and medical concerns, I needed a promise of spring. But it wasn’t just that flowers would bloom and corn would grow when we finally moved into our house (things stayed in boxes for much longer than I hoped). Or that I would be full of energy in that second trimester (I was actually tired the whole way through the pregnancy). Or that my son would progress and pull out of his medical issues (he didn’t, and our concerns grew). I needed to see the value in the season of transition, when God was shoveling, tilling, raking—messing up the hard soil of
my heart. He was ready to plant new seeds of faith that could later produce a great harvest for the kingdom. He was not content to let the field of my life stay dormant.
The ultimate spring we all need to look forward to is the defrosting of Satan’s cold grip on this earth, when the full and final sunshine of God and the Lamb lights up the streets of the New Jerusalem. [13] That’s the true end to this big, groaning transition we’re all in, and it’s the only thing we can count on.
Transitional seasons are part of life. We might not enjoy every aspect of them, but we don’t have to fear them. God loves us too much to let us be comfortable and unscathed. Adoption, infertility, job loss, sick family members, new careers, and new schools might feel like transitions we don’t want to bear. But
let’s rejoice when we have moments of joy and rest, knowing that God has good purposes for today and a sure promise of our final destination.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
[10] John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress (Chicago, IL: Moody, 2007).
[11] Psalm 23:4; 2 Corinthians 12:9-10; Revelation 21:4.
[12] Exodus 15:22-27.
[13] Revelation 21:23.
***
Risen Motherhood, by Emily A. Jensen and Laura Wifler, takes you through the redemptive story and reveals how closely the gospel connects with everyday motherhood. This read will change the way you understand and apply the gospel to common issues moms face so you can connect your Sunday morning faith to the Monday morning tantrum.
Discover how the gospel can bring hope, freedom, and joy in every area of motherhood here.
Leave a Reply