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I wish I had known sooner how hard this would all be, for you and for me.  What I would have done with such information, I’ll never know. Would I have opted out to avoid the pain, the stretch, the breaking it’s required of me?Probably not. I wish I had known how hard I would have to fight for an inch of my own air to breathe sometimes and how many years it would take to realize I was choking. I wish I had realized sooner that even though I would have to fight for a little air, I could have it. I wish I had known how invisible I would feel sometimes.  I wish I had known how insignificant and stuck I would feel on the hardest days.  I didn’t know I would feel this way sometimes and I certainly didn’t know that I would feel ashamed for feeling this way, too.I wish I had known that just about every system operating in the world requires mothers to kill either their instincts or their ambition.  I wish I had figured that out sooner and listened to both better.I wish I had known that I would feel misunderstood so much of the time by almost everyone. I didn’t know how afraid being a mother would make me, the stakes seeming to inch higher with every passing year, with every step they take toward independence. Have I done enough good to counter all the bad?  What has it been like for them, being mine? Will they suffer because of me? Because of what I am? Because of what I am not?Being a mother means making impossible choices and keeping a straight face while you do it, lest anyone see the truth, that is how little you know.  How do I know what to let go of? What to fight for? What to hold onto? Do they know how viscerally I love them and how I can’t breathe without them, even though I need my headphones and NPR  to survive a day surrounded by them? Do they know how I can’t breathe at night because I am so afraid that I’m getting this wrong and afraid of all the dangerous blind spots I haven’t discovered?When my first batch of children were young and I was too, I was convinced there was one path to follow and a single, sure formula I could use to guarantee happy, healthy kids who wouldn’t smoke or drink or chew or run with kids who do.  I know just enough now to know that almost none of us knows much of anything for sure and all those formulas and paths I thought I could trust have disappeared like puffs of smoke before my very eyes. Where once I saw footprints in front of me on the path, now there is nothing left but dirt and my irrational fear of sinkholes and quicksand.There is nothing but these open hands, a little shaky and totally empty and outstretched now.  There is nothing left but the long, long list of all the times when God met me in my lack and grace made up the difference.  Maybe that’ll be enough.  Maybe if I can’t teach my kids how to never be depressed or unbalanced or doubtful or angry or terrified, I can teach them how to hold their own weaknesses and mistakes and fears as loosely as they hold their strengths and accomplishments and Bible Memory Awards.  Maybe if I can’t teach them how to impress everyone all the time, I can still teach them how to press their whole breaking hearts into Jesus, the One who came to be with us and in us.Being a mother is so, so hard.  I don’t know anyone who has really found a way to balance the demands of earning and managing money, caring for a home and a family, being a good citizen of the world much less a faithful member of a faith community or  minding their own soul care. I see some of you trying to make room for yourselves among all the other things that clamor and I have the urge to raise my fist in quiet solidarity. I know how hard and scary it is to start to tell the people around you that you need a little room too, after long years of pretending to be a saint or worse, a martyr.Raising kids is so terribly hard and so consuming and so very good and also brutal and exhausting that I don’t know how any woman actually survives it.  Except I do know how I’ve survived it, and that’s barely and only by the breath of God that has filled my lungs over and over again, amen.December was a mess and the rest of the year wasn’t exactly a glowing success.  Some of the choices and changes I’ve made and things I’ve tried haven’t worked out  like I hoped and I’m licking some wounds and fighting to feel a spark of hope. Today, I feel low. I feel low and lacking and embarrassed and tired and I can’t talk myself out of it, no matter how hard I try. And then I remember Advent, when the nights were starting to get so deep and dark and long that we all found ourselves a little disoriented at 4:45 when the windows made us swear it was midnight. I remember the day, not too long ago, when the light broke through the long darkness, bringing the hope of the whole world.  I remember how the night started its retreat as the days stretched out across the hours again. I remember still.The spark of hope remains and even though it flickers and sometimes it even wanes, I can’t deny it.  On the exhale, in the pit of my stomach, the Spirit of God is with me, near as my next breath. It’s enough for the moment I’m in, I’ll leave the rest to worry about itself while I take myself for a walk, I think.  There’s enough daylight left for that, I think. But if not, I can walk in the dark a while. The light has come and is coming still.A note:This is not the sort of post I thought I’d be sharing today. I tried to write something, anything else.  I wanted to be cheerful and upbeat and write about my intentions for the new year. But then I thought of you, the ones who are in these trenches or perhaps a different type of trench, and I couldn’t offer you anything less than what I know to be most real today. I wanted you to know that I am with you, God is with you, and you are surely not as alone or invisible as you may have thought.  We can talk about resolutions another day.