And Then God Created A Mother
an introduction
Motherhood—a heaving, an unbecoming, a breaking, a baptizing, a divine renewal.
—Excerpt from my book “Beckoning of the Wind: An Ode To Motherhood”
Motherhood completely changed me. I never knew how wide open I’d be broken, yet how engulfed and enveloped I’d become in an experience that would alter the entire state of my being. And yet here I am — free-falling, unbound, into this endless well of beautiful chaos and divine love.
Mothering is this beautiful yet strange and stripping experience. It’s foreign, painful, scary, while also glorious, spiritual, awakening. It is the most complex journey that I have ever wandered, sometimes crawling on my knees because it is the only way that I know how.
What I wish I’d know when I became a mom almost two and a half years ago is that this journey can sometimes get overwhelming. And messy. And flat-out lonely. Nobody talked about these sorts of things, as if everyone around me were in silent agreement to never acknowledge the grit-filled pieces of the equation that make up the sum of motherhood. You can’t have the beauty without the hard times, I’ve learned.
And I’ve also learned that along the journey, you learn to love your new skin. You learn to stretch with the stretch marks, to expand in a way you’d never known to be possible. You learn to translate this new language into your own. You learn the grace of Mother Earth, because now you are her.
Over time, I began to equate motherhood to being out in the wilderness — lost, confused, and often trying to find one’s way back to what feels familiar. This is where the term motherness was birthed.
Motherness — the wilderness of what we know as motherhood. The foreign territory that many women find themselves navigating, often scared and alone. All the terrain that is motherhood, known and unknown, is made up of an intriguing vastness that yearns to be unearthed and explored, vigilantly.
And so here I am, taking examination of this profound passage through words. Here I am, throwing myself into the wilderness, into the motherness, and hoping that I find my way.
Reflection:
— How did motherhood change you?
— What does your motherhood experience feel like?
— What do you wish you’d known before becoming a mother?
— What made you join this community and what do you hope to gain from it?
From one mother to another,
Mariah Maddox
I like your term “motherness”! I liked how you described it as “stripping” because there is so much that comes off when you become a mother. You’re always becoming, mothering in different stages and learning alongside the kids. Your essay captured the nuances well. Thank you.