Mom Burnout and True Rest in Christ
“…[N}o matter what precautions we take, no matter how well we have put together a good life, no matter how hard we have worked to be healthy, wealthy, comfortable with friends and family, and successful with our career — something will inevitably ruin it.”—Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering, Tim Keller
I work hard. I set goals. I get up early and hit them hard.
Like you, that was what I was taught. Even in a non-Christian home, my dad extolled the benefits of hard work. And for the most part it worked.
Until it didn’t.
When I became a Christian, I thought the best way to please God was to do the hardest thing possible. When I was a college student, I thought that meant choosing a life of ministry instead of pursuing a career in medicine. When I was a young mom, I thought that meant homeschooling instead of sending my kids to a traditional school.
And so in 2012, I thought pleasing God meant stepping forward to adopt a 7-year-old orphan from China with Down Syndrome so she wouldn’t be placed in a state orphanage when her home was shut down by the government.
Because my hard work in the past had generally been rewarded with success—which, as I realize now, is actually a gift of God’s grace—I fully expected the Lord to keep doing the same. Anah would join our family. There would be a few hiccups and bumps in the road, to be sure, but in a year or two, we’d go back to normal—one big(ger) happy family.
It didn’t work that way.
More Than I Imagined—and Not in a Good Way
What I didn’t know then was that one of the harder—and unplannable—issues of adoption is the experience of being an orphan. Add on top of that Anah’s cognitive limitations, and it was a mess.
From the time I woke up to the time I put my exhausted head on my pillow, I was constantly guessing. What did she need? How can I help her learn to do this task independently? When was the last time she used the toilet?
Because she could not learn how to plan her day, choose her own clothes, or even know when to stop wiping her nose, I felt like I was constantly telling her what to do.
But as any mother would tell you, being a mom isn’t just about motoring your kids through the day. It was about connecting with them, enjoying them, and talking with them.
Because Anah was also nonverbal, there was little feedback or conversation. Every question was met with a blank stare. There was little relationship to make the hard work feel worth it.
Mommy Burnout
As a homeschooling family, we were set to homeschool Anah as well. And for the first five years of her life with us, we did. We spent a lot of time developing a program just for her.
The problem was, I had three other children I was homeschooling too. One was preparing for high school graduation. Another was just starting his school journey. And one just did best when I read aloud with him.
There just wasn’t enough of me.
Little by little, I dropped my expectations of myself. I stopped keeping my cleaning schedule. I counted it a success when we had any kind of food on the table at dinner.
And in my heart, I could feel myself shriveling, even dying. I felt like a machine, not a human.
I would work hard, but I knew it wasn’t my best. I would be scrambling to keep up and still drop balls. Soon, I felt like I was under a deluge of missed tasks.
Because I was so busy at home just managing life, I didn’t have a whole lot of time to connect with others. In fact, when I had the opportunity (we still managed to get to church every Sunday because I was a pastor’s wife, after all) I didn’t have the energy to talk. And if I did, everyone would ask me how it was going with Anah, and I honestly didn’t want to talk about her, so I would hide out in my husband’s office as much as I could to avoid it.
Not only did I not have time with others, I didn’t have time to be with God. To be more precise, I actually didn’t even want to be with God. I was angry at Him for taking his eyes off the wheel of my life and leading me into this ditch, a deep pit I could not get out of.
I felt like such a hypocrite. What kind of a pastor’s wife was I? Not only was I in a pit, my shame was blocking me from Him, the only escape route I really had.
Utterly Alone
Though it has been many years since I have been in this place, even writing this was hard. But I also know that I needed to go there, to remember.
As a Christian woman, I grew up hearing my share of inspirational talks from older and wiser Titus 2 women about the joys of motherhood. I aspired to be a Proverbs 31 woman, the Christian version of the successful woman who does it all.
Now, I felt just the opposite. When I went to bed at night, I was not able to rest. Sleep became more of an opportunity to escape my life, if just for a moment. It was a chance to curl into myself and just hide.
But in the darkness, evil things began to happen in my heart. Though I did not hear voices, thoughts would flit through my mind. They ranged from You’re such a failure to You deserve better than this.
Without the protection of a growing relationship with God, a united marriage, and the company of other believers, I began to morph. Maybe a better word would be “mutate.”
Like a cancer, these thoughts began to change my heart. I became angrier. Harder. Darker. Bitterness and resentment began to eat away at me.
Lament Instead of Sin
I had never felt such despair in my life. This despair began to morph into depression, a numbness that left me zoned out of life. I am pretty sure the expression on my face was just as blank as Anah’s.
I wish I could go back to my past self and allow myself time to lament. So much of my hardship came because I refused to allow myself to be sad, to grieve the losses we experienced, even as we added a child to our family. In my pride, I didn’t want to appear weak or discourage others so I didn’t allow myself to go there.
I sometimes wonder how life would have been different if I didn’t let my suffering turn into sin. Though I can’t change that, I have since come to recognize that suffering can come, even when you want to please God. Because we live in a world turned inside out and upside down, that happens.
But even in our lowest points, even if we are experiencing the negative consequences of poor choices, God is willing to hear our laments. He doesn’t care if it’s our own fault or the result of life here on earth. Lament is an appropriate Godward response we can make when life is hard and difficult.
It would take me awhile to learn this—many hard years to soften my heart to be able to accept and believe these words:
“He will tend his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms;
he will carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead those that are with young.”—Is. 40:11 (ESV)
Though I didn’t know it then—I certainly didn’t feel it—He was caring for me. Even as I was tending my own family, He was shepherding me. And not just leading me on the path of life, but He gathered me up in his arms and carried me close.
How About You?
I hope you are not where I was, but if you are, I encourage you to turn to God. You don’t need to bear these burdens alone. The Good Shepherd invites you to bring your burdens and cares to Him for He cares for you (1 Peter 5:7).
He is near, so we can bring all our anxieties and worries to Him (Phil. 4:5-6). And when we do, His peace that surpasses all understanding has an opportunity to begin its work.
You don’t have to polish yourself up. You don’t need to perform any rituals. If you are in Christ, you can come to Him with your burdens and pains to the one who understands with compassion because He became one of us (Heb. 4: 15-16).
Don’t be like me. Turn your face to God, not away from Him. That alone is our first act of faith in times of hardship and suffering.
Remember who He is: our Creator, our sustainer, our God, our King, the one who holds all things in His sovereign control. He has not left you or me alone.
Without Him, even the best advice will fail. But with Him, even if we do not know the way, we can be at peace, knowing that He will not lead us astray. Tell Him your situation. Describe what you’re struggling with in your life. Even express the things that you think are wrong and make you angry.
I wish I had done this. How much pain I would have saved—for myself and for others. But that’s a story for my next post.
