Comments on: A Peculiar Peace

by: Lyric

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 13:17:26 +0000

Twelve years ago I could have written the exact same words you did. I was educated, had decided to give up grad school and most of my life’s dreams to have a baby, moved… everything. I had been questioning God’s love for his daughters and all the same things you mention. It’s amazing where God’s plan for me has brought me. He asked me to teach seminary when my faith was failing and through an intense study of the New Testament and Christ’s life I realized that the way the world treated His daughters was NOT His plan. My faith came back over the period of a year and continues to build.

Joy in my role as Mother took much longer. Trying to be happy when I had given up everything for a grumpy unpleasable child (my first didn’t smile for four months) while being unbearably exhausted all the time just wasn’t working. I perked up once I got more than two hours of sleep at a stretch. It got really bad after baby #2. I hated everything about my life. Everything. It took finding a new dream/creative-outlet and working through my feelings about motherhood to turn things around. It finally boiled down to realizing that the message I had absorbed from my “feminist education” was that women who stayed home were doing so because they were too oppressed or dumb to do anything else. I had to work hard to come to believe that raising children was the most important thing I could do… still have to remind myself. the first piece of art I made was a turning point.. new passion, new ideas about motherhood. If you’d like to read more about my journey you can see it here - http://www.lyrickinard.com/motherhood.html

Anyway… the point is that 12 years down the road my love for God and for His church is firm and growing… as is my knowledge that even if the world doesn’t see motherhood as important and worth rewarding.. He does. It’s amazing too the peace I’ve had with baby #5, knowing that even though this particular phase isn’t so much fun it definately gets better!!!
God loves you. You’ll make it through this. It is difficult, and will turn your brain to oatmeal for a while but maybe that just lets your heart soften. It’s worth it!

by: Jen

Sun, 28 May 2006 12:13:26 +0000

I can relate to your post completely. I have encountered a very similar experience. In fact several times. I have what I call relapses when I grapple extensively with issues of this nature, then study, ponder, and pray, until coming to my own “peculiar peace” that fuels me and makes me stronger.

by: Téa

Sat, 27 May 2006 21:23:37 +0000

I know exactly what you mean about being afraid to ask, Starfoxy–many things for me, temporal and eternal.

Peculiar peace, indeed. Sometimes we don’t know how blessed silence is until we’ve experienced the torrents of troubling thoughts and fear.

Sounds like I need to spend some time in my laudry room =)

by: miss sarah

Wed, 24 May 2006 11:44:18 +0000

Starfoxy, I appreciated these personal thoughts. Reading your post reminded me of similar stories I’ve heard from other women- similar in their content, varied somewhat in their resolution (perhaps some of the above comments reference this variance). What I love about it is that each woman who went to God -for peace, for understanding, for clarity- received an answer that worked for her, and the answers were custom. I’ve heard them share various conclusions that all managed to fall under the umbrella of correct doctrine while being individually tailored. If that makes sense. . . anyway, your post was a welcome reminder to me of the personal involvement of a God that I tend to think of too abstractly, too often. There’s a quote, which translates somewhat to “What interests me is not the happiness of all men; it’s the happiness of each man” (Vian, L’Ecume des jours, Pauvert). Vian thought the two were mutually exclusive; apparently, part of what it means to be God is to be able to reconcile the two interests. Anyway, thanks again for the post.

by: JKS

Tue, 23 May 2006 23:58:36 +0000

I am so glad to come back and read what everyone wrote. I was hoping I hadn’t started some big fight or something!
I am hoping that this blog stays gospel oriented from women’s perspective. There is much to celebrate about being a woman and about living the gospel.

by: Michelle

Tue, 23 May 2006 20:37:48 +0000

Is there anywhere on the internet for people like me ?

JKS, I sincerely hope you will feel A Prayer of Faith is a place for you. It truly is a place where we want to celebrate our place as women in the kingdom. Some of that will include working through some of the concerns some women have…but always with that goal of finding answers through faith, as Starfoxy shared with us here. I just hope you stick around because we want people like you to rejoice in faith with us!!

by: Michelle

Tue, 23 May 2006 20:33:40 +0000

I love the message this post gives: That when we struggle, if we turn to God, He can grant us peace and give us insights. I just realized I didn’t do enough of that after my first was born…that transition was hard for me.

For what it is worth, I personally found the second baby a lot easier because I knew it would be hard and exhausting at first, but I also knew how quickly she would grow up. I was able to enjoy the journey a little more. The first time around, I was so overwhelmed and it was all so new and I was so, so exhausted.

by: Naiah

Tue, 23 May 2006 20:13:38 +0000

To clarify one point, I created APoF to indeed be a place where issues facing sisters of the church could be discussed from a place of firm faith, though I would not term it “feminist-themed.” I, myself, am not content to call myself a feminist, as I have yet to find a paradigm of feminism with which I am comfortable as a woman of faith.

There are many sisters who, when they learn of various criticisms of the church common to feminist thinkers are deeply shaken, and it is important to be aware of these doubts that tear at our sisters, and to look at and for ways to help them resolve the conflicts.

What Starfoxy has written here is, definitely, in keeping with my hopes and intentions on this scrore. In this piece she has shared how she has found, and is finding her way through the angst and suffering that she has felt as a result of the perceived conflict between feminist ideas and LDS womanhood.

Out of respect to the deeply personal nature of the feelings that she has shared in this piece, I would ask that the comments be contained to the subject of her post. There will be other threads for the broader themes of feminism and the like.

by: Naiah

Tue, 23 May 2006 16:26:08 +0000

The ‘lag time’ inherent in getting accustomed to any major life change (several of which you faced at once) can feel much like depression. Exhaution, sluggishness, down or distraught feelings. We never realize how dependant we are on our ‘autopilot’ until it no longer runs, until we find ourselves in such a situation where things are not so familiar that we must consider many if not every detail of our day. It can be mentally exhausting. It’s like looking at art all day in a museum. As delightful as the art (or the life change) can be, by the end of the day, the constant assessing of nuance leaves the mind quite passively exhausted. Where was the effot? Where was the strain? It was never evident in the moment, and yet its effects are felt after. Change takes mental consideration, all day long, as the day is different. Good-different or bad-different, it matters not; it’s just different, and different takes a huge amount of passive mental effort.

With a new baby, there is a near-constant level of different. They are not static creatures, and this accounts for much of the exhausted and overwhelmed feelings that new moms experience.

Hang in there, mamma. You know it, but it doesn’t hurt to say it: there is joy in this life for you. As I said, you, of all people, are the one suited to fill the measure of your creation and find your joy in it.

by: Starfoxy

Tue, 23 May 2006 16:26:07 +0000

JKS (#3) I’m sorry you feel that this post treats the church negatively. As I understand, (and Naiah can correct me if I’m wrong) this blog *is* intended 1) to be faith promoting, and 2) to be feminist-themed. We want to explore ways in which a woman can be faithful and accepting of the church as it is, and still be decidedly feminist. We believe that men and women are of equal worth before the Lord, and each of us has gotten to that belief in their own way. This was my way.
This post isn’t describing a crisis of faith in God or the Church. In fact my faith in the church never wavered. During this time period I attended all of my meetings, read the scriptures and prayed every day, and attended the Temple once a month. It was a crisis of faith about my worth as a daughter of God, and the value of the work I have been asked to do.
The main point is, there were then, and are now many things about the church that make my feminist bells ring, and make me want to call “foul!” However, because I have faith in the restored gospel, and a fervent testimony of the atonement and love of Jesus Christ I know that whatever it is that makes me want to call foul (be it a failing of church, a failing of my understanding, or simply making the best of the problems of a fallen world) will be fixed. More specifically, I have faith that it is okay for it to be unfair for now. I can just let it slide off my back because of the trial and understanding that I described above.
If you don’t see things in the church as unfair to women, then you don’t need me to convince you that they are. It is a very real possibility that my opinions are tainted by the world and whatever injustice I see is because of my own misunderstanding.

As an aside, I thought I should mention that my baby did eventually smile at me (it took him nearly 4 months!) and I started liking him. Now we’re hopelessly in love.