My first birth tore me open. For a month, I could barely shift positions, let alone walk and care competently for our colicky newborn. I was still taking heavy painkillers to dull the pain, and the weight of failure hung around me. My daughter wouldn’t stop crying and my body was so broken that I could barely hold and walk her through it. That wasn’t the worst part though.
Everything about motherhood was new. I hadn’t expected that it would be this hard, but I also hadn’t really known what to expect. What cut me more was the struggle I had accepting help from my husband. I didn’t want him to care for me. I didn’t want to ask for that glass of water or help up off the couch. I didn’t want him making us meals. That was my territory. Cooking, homemaking, caretaking - these were my specialties, my contribution to our marriage. Now that the birth of our daughter had left me unable to accomplish them, even temporarily, I floundered.
He was working so hard to take care of us. He would work all day to earn a living, and then come home to a sobbing wife holding a fussy baby, and offer me some relief from the physical pain and emotional pressure I put on myself. These days were hard, but they were made harder by the fact that I couldn’t accept his hard work and kind gestures as love. Instead, they were proof of my own inadequacy.
I’ve always struggled with the drive to cheapen love into currency. Accepting the mystery of love’s gratuitousness has not come easily. I don’t want gifts. I would rather earn my way into affection. It is steadier ground to stand on something you deserve. This is a false security fed by the lie that I am capable of weaving my deserving web all the time. It is shaky ground, trusting someone else with your heart. People fail. They are inconsistent. They are trapped by their shortcomings, history, and failures. But the shaky ground of love freely given is still more real than the illusion that I can garner, hold, and deserve love by my own will.
My husband doesn’t dole out love because I am worthy. He loves me because he is good. The more unable I am to perform, the more I free I am to enter into the divine mystery of love. This Sacrament shines light on the truth of God’s love; it is not dependent on me. I so want to stay in the safety of performing and earning affection. It is more familiar. It fills me with pride. But it is also much more like slavery than love. Ironically, the less I am able to do, the more free I am. When I accept and embrace love freely given despite my limitations, the shackles fall off. The less I have to say about why my husband or God loves me, the more fully their love fills me. Love and grace flowing freely from a giver of good gifts. The more that is stripped away, the more easily I recognize this truth. The more easily I receive it.
That’s nice, isn’t it?
Sure it is. And yet I still find myself praying alongside a young St. Augustine, more scoundrel than saint: Yes, Lord, I want this gift.
Just - not yet.