More thoughts on motherhood

"If you aspire to be a mother, you aspire to a job without pay that is harder than any job you'll be paid for. It's a job with no time off, only time away. [D0] not have children to derive anything from them—not love or joy or fun or a legacy. It is possible that any or all of these may come, but there will be long stretches when little fulfillment is in sight."

"I did not know when we started our family... that each birth would deliver into my arms an immeasurable weight of vulnerability and terror, but I guessed that parenting would bring a profligate, extravagant, others-centered life. As it has. But there has been a kind of death involved, make no mistake. 'Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed,' Jesus taught. 'But if it dies, it produces many seeds.' My ambitious dying life is far from over."

From the article The Case For Kids by Leslie Leland Fields in Christianity Today.

To me, this is the crux of the problem with our modern understanding of motherhood. There seems to be an expectation that one need not give up anything. That children exist to reward us. That we can remain self-focused and self-interested and still be good parents.
I am ashamed to admit that I still struggle to die to self. Through prayer and the mighty acts of God on my heart, I occasionally see glimpses of the seed bearing fruit that nourishes and sustains others. It is SO hard, but even those brief snippets I've seen -- oh my goodness, is it ever GOOD!!