happy new year! who do you want to be?

"If we would do our best for our children, grow we must, and on our power of growth surely depends, not only our future happiness, but our future usefulness." - A.,  Volume III, no. 2, The Parents' Review (A Charlotte Mason publication)

Well, another year is in the books!  I'm proud of 2018 and all that happened.  I'm happy with the amount and quality of reading I got accomplished through the year, we made some amazing strides in our homeschooling adventure, and I'm excited about the traditions we are endeavoring to set in place moving forward.  Admittedly, with the pace and season of life right now, I don't feel like I'm able to stop and reflect and plan as much as I'd like to, but I'm happy with where we're at.

The new year is such an easy time to evaluate what's going well, and what's not, and identify what we hope to accomplish in the future.  I have been thinking over the last few weeks and months, however, that perhaps we get too nearsighted in our goals.  Perhaps, in looking only at the upcoming year, we fail to plan for the big picture.  Perhaps our eyes as mothers are often focused too much on our children's growth and futures, to the neglect of our own.

**Now, before you go thinking I'm going to endorse some kind of self-centric view of motherhood and push the importance of 'self-care,' I will tell you outright that this is not what I am talking about.  In fact, I have been stewing on some pretty firey thoughts about how appallingly and disgustingly selfish modern 'mommy culture' is, and how the last thing we need right now is yet another crackhead telling us that we just need to love ourselves more and how 'self care is never selfish.'  BARF AND BARF.  Lies from the pit of hell that will absolutely ruin you, friend; that's what that garbage is.  I'll grace you with an impassioned letter to the editor on this topic soon, but in short, this is NOT what I'm promoting.

In the meantime, let me clarify what I do mean.  I do mean what Charlotte Mason would call investing in 'mother culture,' as distinguished from 'mommy culture' - the intentional growth of the mother into the kind of person that is fulfilled and purposeful in any season of life.  What I do mean is the Biblical call to continue to strive, both as individuals and as members of a vibrant church body, to grow in sanctification.  To put on a new man.  To be transformed by the renewing of our minds.

I have been wrestling lately with how much time I spend thinking about who I want my kids to become, and not nearly enough with who I am becoming.  I will become merely an older, more entrenched version of my current self if I put no effort into renewal.  If I am short-tempered or critical now, a different life stage will not change who I am at my core.  If I am bitter or lazy or cowardly now, time does not change that.  It only ages it; sets it into deeper and deeper patterns of habit.

To get even more specific, what I'm saying is this: One day, my toddlers will no longer need my efforts at troubleshooting the 'me do it' stage.  One day, my homeschoolers will graduate.  One day, I will have a much smaller household to run.  One day, if I have done my job well, I will have worked myself out of a large part of my current job.  And on that day, who will I be?  Who will I be on my way to becoming?

I am far from having everything figured out.  I don't know what it's like to live life in the stages beyond where I'm currently at.  However, from what I've observed, I have noticed two really terrifying patterns occurring in women who have not planned well (read: Biblically) for the inevitable day when they are empty nesters:  in the first camp are the mothers who fall apart, suffering an identity crisis when they are no longer able to place their whole identity in their role as someone's necessary Mommy.  These women seem to insert themselves in unhealthy way into their adult children's lives, through emotional manipulation or control, or a permissiveness toward extended adolescence in their adult kids.  They become needy.

In the second camp are the mothers who embrace what they see as the finish line, and with so much time and money now freed up, they spend it all on themselves and their own whims.  They don't continue to be intentional about investing those resources into the next generation, or their Christian legacy; they fritter away the second act of motherhood under the delusion that they are no longer under any obligation of sacrifice or costly service to their children.  Their main concerns become their own wants, their own hobbies, their own pursuit of fulfillment, their own jobs, their own vacations, their own lives.  They become negligent.

I realize that's super simplistic, and there are so many different degrees and manifestations of each of these things, but I'm guessing I'm not the only one who's noticed these trends among older women.  But trends aren't destiny, and Christians are not determinists (well, many of us are predeterminists, but that's a different thing) - the Holy Spirit promises a third way, if we are committed to pursuing our own relationship with the Lord and our own sanctification at continued cost to ourselves: "We do not lose heart.  Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day."

If we lean into the Holy Spirit, and get intentional about our own growth, we become younger with each passing day.  As we age, we have the opportunity to become more and more fresh, full of more and more usefulness and vigor and purpose.  As our bodies change, break down, and wear out, our spirits - our deepest selves - can be Benjamin Buttoning - if we identify that as our goal and point our feet in that direction.

I want to do that.  I want to become younger as my kids grow older.  I want to be whole in Christ, lacking no good thing, even when my kids leave home.  Even when I get sick or frail.  Even when I feel alone.  Even when loss and tragedy strike.  I want to be a little newer each day.  But I have to intention to head that direction now, or I won't find myself at that destination later.  It will not happen by accident.

I am committing to spending some time here at the beginning of 2019, asking myself who I want to become, and really evaluating what steps I can be taking now to ensure I get there.  Want to join me?

One thing I have found supremely helpful in terms of planning for my future is looking to women who have lived these life stages before me.  This week, I read The Silver Lining: A Practical Guide for Christian Grandmothers, which talks about many of the roles we face as aging Christian women: wives in decades-long marriages, mothers to adult children, mothers-in-law, adult children of aging parents, future elderly parents of adult children, grandmothers, Titus 2 women in the church.  Some of these roles I'd not thought much about, so it was so helpful for me to have it laid out - when I face these roles, who do I want to be?  How do I want to live these things?  Do I really want to be thinking about these things for the first time when they're already happening?  It's a really great read, one I'll likely go back to frequently over time, and I'm grateful for and inspired by the wisdom in these pages.  I'd highly recommend it if you're wanting to start planning for your future in this way.  (Plus, it's only 122 pages, so it's a very quick read - it's not heavy or hard to get through.)


Here's to a strong start to 2019: may the entire year be a strong start to the rest of our lives.