It's finally here...the end of my maternity leave. I am down to only one full week before I go back to teaching full-time. First, let me get one thing straight -- I am confident that the Lord has given me a heart and a passion for high school students and for the role I play as a teacher in helping shape both their minds and futures. Those of you who have had conversations with me also know that I absolutely adore my job. It's my mission field. It's what God designed me for. He has made this so strikingly clear to me in countless ways, countless times. I know God made me a teacher. But God also created me to be a mom.
My sweet little son turned 12 weeks old this past Wednesday. Seriously? Where did these past 12 weeks go??? It seems like yesterday I was holding his sweet little body for the first time in the cold hospital room, desperately trying to figure out breast-feeding and how to change a diaper with a sore circumcision, and wondering how in the world my body would ever heal from something so painful. I remember looking at my little miracle, and tearing up just at the site of his perfect little fists and ears, wondering how anyone could look at a newborn baby and not believe that there was an Almighty Creator that had designed this little bundle to perfection. But it wasn't yesterday. It was nearly three months ago. And after three months of waking up at my leisure and spending all day with my precious boy, I now face the unknown of being a working mommy.
Those of you who are not mothers probably think I am crazy when I say I bawl every time I think about leaving Ellis for a workday. I trust my babysitters with my LIFE, but the thought of not spending the day with my boy brings on a sadness only a mother can understand. By spending so much time together, I have gotten to bond with this child and experience so many "firsts" -- his first smile, his first laugh, his first coos. I see him smile when I wake him up from a nap. I have learned what his cries mean. He knows me, and it shows. I can't help but thinking that the first morning I leave him, he will in his small, developing mind think that I am abandoning him. How do you explain to a three month old that you will be back in a few hours? You don't. You can't. You simply have to suck it up, cry a little, and pray for the day to go quickly.
My husband keeps "reassuring" me that women have been doing this for hundreds of years, and I know he means well, but I find no comfort in those words. Other women may have done it, but I haven't. I have never had to leave Ellis for a whole day. And the thought of it is downright heartbreaking.
Let me say again that I LOVE my job. And I really do feel that this is what I am called to do with my life. My heart is the heart of a teacher, but also the heart of a mommy. I know this is not one of my most profound posts, but getting my anxieties out in words helps me not feel so muddled up inside. I'm thankful God has placed me in the classroom, and I am looking forward to what this year brings. Please pray for my emotional strength as I prepare to leave being a full-time mom and transition back into the education world. Pray for balance and clarity and focus so that I may raise Ellis in the Word, nourishing him with love and truth and attention, but also pray that I may shower love and truth and affection on the students that pass through my classroom. Jesus, help me to mirror You for both my child and my classroom.
