INTRODUCTION
Ideas So Old They Are New
Imagine you were offered a makeover that not only promised to make you more beautiful, but shaved off the rough edges of your personality and helped you gain control of your emotions, better manage your relationships, and grow in wisdom. And what if it could actually make you happy? Not waiting-for-happy. Not looking-in-all-the-wrong-places-happy. Not I’ve-given-up-on-happy. But truly, deeply happy—the kind of abiding happiness that isn’t shaken by changes in fortune, life challenges, death of loved ones, or illness. Sounds too good to be true, huh? And yet, this is the makeover every woman is handed with the gift of motherhood. Oh, yes, you also get a darling little bundle, but the real rewards are just waiting to be claimed. I know, it sounds like an empty sales pitch, but bear with me.
Motherhood is hard. There is no way around it. I didn’t realize just how hard until I started having my own children. It is the most difficult thing I’ve ever done—harder than learning four new languages, harder than writing a dissertation, harder than balancing full-time work and school. For a long time, however, I lived with the expectation that somehow being a mom was going to get easier. At every stage, I hoped that maybe next week I would get more sleep, that the endless messes would abate, or that the little battles through the mundane would subside.
A wise priest once told me that my daily struggles, such as being cut off in traffic, waiting in long lines, or dealing with incompetent customer service agents, were all part of God’s plan to make me holy. A few days later, when my husband did something irritating, I looked at him with a clenched jaw and said, “You are making me so holy right now,” which made both of us laugh. Somehow, however, I didn’t apply this priest’s wisdom to all the chaos and rough edges associated with parenting. Like most moms, I just wanted to get beyond them, rather than consider that maybe they were actually good for my soul and for our family in general.
