Go Mommy Blogger and The Better Mom Devotional, day 11; The Hard Places That Make Us Holy

All three of my pregnancies were difficult, like, puke-my-way-through five-months-solid-and-come- away-eight-cavities-richer-in-the-aftermath, difficult; get pumped with water at the hospital for dehydration, difficult; like a Hyperemesis Gravidarum diagnosis EVERY TIME, difficult; like an emergency C-section, difficult; like Perinatal Depression (depression during pregnancy followed by postpartum depression) difficult.

For some, this includes babies who do not sleep, difficult; babies with Jaundice, difficult; babies born with handicaps, difficult; babies not born at all, difficult.

This is important to remember and to accept because, as Ruth will remind us today,
One of the ways He [God] does this work in us [setting up apart as holy] is through the hard places of life- and that includes parenting. (emphasis and inserts mine)

Ruth makes some outrages claims here, so brace yourself. The crazy thing is, I think she's right.
Do you?

*God will often lead us to hard places to make us more like Him.
*Sometimes in the hard places it feels as if God is taking things away from us when He's actually giving us a good gift; He's teaching us to depend on Him.
*He causes us to hunger and thirst for Him. but then He feeds us with what we need most. God gives us the gift of Himself.
*The hardest places can often be the holiest places- the spaces where God does some of His greatest work.
*[Our] greatest need is knowing and treasuring [God]
(emphasis mine)

Wherever you find yourself on the spectrum of mommy-hood (although if you are reading this Better Mom devotional and are not a mom, welcome), be encouraged.
Even during some of my worse depression, I found excuses to laugh.

During my pregnancy with baby number 2, my Wildcard son, my sister-in-love was pregnant as well and both of us were in terrible shape. Depression, illness, medications too numerous to count.
Together, she and I would share the laughter of insane people over the phone as we both spoke of how much better it would feel to die than to live like this- and it was horrendous, but it was life-giving. I was not alone and neither was she, even in that really hard place. And the truth is, I believe God was with us both.

source

Those of you who know me personally know that I still get depression, like a blanket, thrown on me from time to time. It is a hard place. It is difficult to feel God in that place, but maybe that is why faith is so important- no, vital.  So that we learn to trust when we cannot see, and believe what we do not always feel.

Here is to us. May you and I and everyone else learn to trust that, even in the hard places -perhaps especially there- God is leading us, holding us, loving us, and making us more like Him.