I’ve written a lot about what a struggle Claire’s infancy was for me, dealing with a baby who was constantly demanding with cries and forever fighting sleep. She never seemed happy and frankly, neither was I much of the time.
I’ve also written that the Lord has done a lot of healing since then in these past months. Things with her have gotten so much better. She is an incredible joy and she seems to be making up for all the happiness that seemed lacking at first. She practically bursts with joy! And it isn’t just that my circumstances have changed, though the relief that has come with that has been a balm to my soul. But I can even look back and be grateful for the hardship I went through during Claire's infancy and be proud of how the Lord sustained me, proud of how he saw fit to give me that struggle and knew I could withstand it. I can honestly say those things now. I mean them.
But recently, I realized that in spite of my ability to feel grateful, I was still harboring bitterness about all I’d gone through. I realized this when I heard other moms talk about how easy their children were, how they were sleeping through the night effortlessly or barely cried and were always content. My jaw would drop, unable to imagine those scenarios. And then a bitterness, a jealousy would well up within me.
Because it felt wholly unfair that they would not have to suffer as I suffered. Wasn’t that part of the newborn experience? Wasn’t that the kind of initiation every mother should have to go through—at least to some degree? I would never wish my experience on anyone else, but come on—just a little?
Misery loves company, and I am sad to say that it was true even for me. I did not want to be alone in my suffering, even though it is now fully in the past. I resented that others were allowed to skip over that. To try to pacify myself, I’d whisper, “Well, someday they’ll suffer. When the child is a toddler or a teenager, then they’ll know hard times. Someday they’ll suffer like I did.”
I realized this, and I knew that I needed to repent of it. Though I’d been feeling these things for months, I hadn’t yet named them, I hadn’t realized that they came from a place of bitterness and jealousy. “Confess your sins and pray for one another and you will be healed,” the book of James says. I truly believe that, and so at that moment, I resolved to confess them at my weekly Bible study.
So a few days later, when the time came, I was at our Bible study. The teacher was wrapping up her lesson just before we broke into our small groups and she finished the lesson by talking about the importance of confession. With that, I knew it was God confirming that he wanted me to do this. He pressed onto my heart that I should make my confession first thing, rather than waiting until the end when we go around and do prayer requests.
When I walked into our small-group room, there was a new face in there. She was a woman I’d met before but who didn’t yet know my heart in the same way all the other women in my group did. I hesitated. But then I remembered another verse: “If you love me, obey me.”
So when the leader nonchalantly asked me how my week had been, I opened up and told them I needed to make a confession before them all, in hopes that God would be faithful to his scriptures and bring healing to this place in my heart. Then, the words spilled out and I confessed this ugly place in my heart.
When I was done, everyone else opened up in confession about the ugly things that were going on—right now, this moment—in their lives that they knew needed confession as well. And you know what? They were all about jealousy, about looking at other people’s circumstances and feeling slighted because theirs were better than their own.
It was proof that God had orchestrated all of this. Beautiful, peace-giving, lovely proof. And so I had to trust that what he had begun, he would finish. That he would bring this healing he had promised in His word. I knew the confession was something he wanted of me, and so I had to trust the healing would come. For me, for each of us. And we each left there feeling a little more free, a little closer to each other and a little closer to Him.
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