When my infant son was finally able to sit on his own, I set him on my bathroom counter one morning and watched him discover the other baby in the mirror. They laughed together, waving floppy arms and marveling that they were both wearing the same footie owl pajamas.
This joy-filled memory is seared into my consciousness because I made a video, and Facebook sends it to me every year. But I also have other memories from these early years that were not filled with laughter. They were filled with my tears that motherhood did not come naturally to me, that I was desperately lonely, and that I missed work outside of my home. My memories of early motherhood are very much clouded by its difficulties, more so than its joys.
As I reflect on my own motherhood journey, I meditate on Joseph and Mary’s response to God’s miraculous work in their lives. It occurs to me that, yes, Mary and Joseph were parenting the Son of God, but they were ordinary parents, too. If we flipped through a family photo album, we would only see the highlights we read in Scripture. We miss their day-to-day hardships. And we miss their day-to-day moments of joy.
But I guarantee their days were filled with a mix of both because the Joseph-of-Nazareth family was just a normal family. The children fought and forgave each other. Provisions were tight, but God provided. Joseph and Mary were out of sync at times, but they found a way to reconnect. Sounds so familiar…
Now that those early years of motherhood are a decade in the past, I can offer my former young-mom self a different perspective: Parenting is a journey. It’s an opportunity to brave our outer circumstances and embrace inner transformation. We start as one person and somehow evolve into someone else. Every journey is a wonderful mix of hardships and laughter, obstacles and goodness, facing the unknown and saying yes to joy. That’s the invitation: Saying yes to the blend of hardships and joy on the journey, knowing that God is with you always.
