A Struggle with Grace: Part 1

Mom asked me the other day about the mental breakdown I had during my first pregnancy. I had never thought of it like that, but I could only imagine what it looked like and sounded like from the other side of things.

For some reason, my mind seems to take the brunt of the pregnancy tolls, and my emotions run EVERYWHERE. Some people get bed rest all 9 months, I get the hormones of a fire crazy female dragon. Things that I normally could reason through become unbearable burdens and punch holes in my will power, self control, and self image.

We were in a delicate place when we discovered the exciting news that we would be parents. We were living with my parents as we were getting our finances prepared after being full time volunteer missionaries for the past 6 month. I had waited all summer to hear back from the HI Department of Education to find out if I would have a job as a teacher, and the day after my job offer came, I found out everything else about our world would be changing as well with the arrival of a baby in the next year.

One Sunday morning, I screamed, howled, and wailed at my husband. I WOULD NOT be going to church that day, "You HAVE to tell me what your plans are for our lives!"

 Morning turned into evening and my tears turned to pouting. I was SO angry that God would dare let us live in this uncertainty. My anger left unresolved, grudges were inconvenient, so I just chose to ignore that day and live on.

Months later, we were living in our first place in Hawaii away from my parents. Thankful for some space to call our own (though we shared very close proximity to the neighbors), my hormones continued to swell and overwhelm me in a cocktail of fear and anxiety. I continued to work as a rookie Kindergarten teacher, trying to measure up to the ideals I had in my head from college days, but felt the crushing weight of exhaustion and the almost 50 pounds I had gained thanks to pregnancy.

One day near the very end of my 3rd trimester, Jonathan had come home later than I anticipated from a job he was working on. Our financial situation weighed HEAVILY on me, in spite of the fact that  miracles were happening for us with new legislation that made it possible for me to receive an entire year's salary even though I was missing the last 2 months of school. But I couldn't see past my red hot anger, and I allowed myself ride my hormonal roller coaster slotting myself to spew another round of insults, blame, yelling, and embarrassment that lead to the building manager knocking on our door to see if police needed to be called.

They weren't called.

I was mortified, horrified to find myself in this lonely place. Not even my husband could comfort me. I felt SO alone and so sat in a pit of self pity.

I had NO ONE to talk to... not even God, I was so bitter that he had placed us in this pot of misery.

FINALLY,  the baby was born and my angry hormones left. Surely joy could return again, and it did, for a while.