They did not know all of our struggles in the process, on purpose. They did not know that the referral call with our first daughter’s profile came while our congregation hosted a conference for ALLIA, All Liberian Lutherans In the Americas. They did not know I was hiding nausea and extreme fatigue during the first trimester of pregnancy. Even when I did share our reasons and decisions related to becoming parents, congregation members listened and interpreted them according to their own biases.
Our church was supportive, as best they knew how. They love children, and it was so touching the way that the other children enveloped our toddler with hands to hold and buddies to sit with as soon as she came home to our family. But during the Wait, comments like “It will all happen in God’s time” made me cringe and hear anew how unhelpful such platitudes are for those waiting to become parents. My anxiety over wanting her with us immediately was exacerbated by my physician husband framing his own frustration through developmental milestones: “Between ages two and three are crucial months for brain development. We have to get her here and connected with resources ASAP!” Yet I knew that many West African members of our congregation had left children behind with extended family for years, since their visas only included certain family members. Month- or year-long separations were the norm for them. Was my “wait” so much more heartbreaking than theirs?
Demonstrating fertility and birthing children are so valued in that same immigrant community that adoption as my husband and I were pursuing it was a strange concept to our church members from West Africa. I overheard well-meaning church people talking about me, honestly wondering why we would adopt “someone else’s child” unless I could not birth one of my own. There were cultural assumptions in there for sure, but that bias is also pretty common among white Americans. Even the judge in Eastern Europe questioned us on this during our court proceedings to adopt. Back home, the congregation waited with us, but only in part as I was too emotionally exhausted to sort out any misconceptions with them.
Most congregants feel they know the pastor, but much of the time, congregations only see what priests and pastors choose to show them. The pre-parenting stage is one of those times when women clergy especially will choose to be circumspect. The uncertainty of adoption added more layers in my case. I appreciated people wanting to celebrate with us but felt like that was only half of the story. Any adoption is preceded by a profound loss for the child and brings unknown challenges ahead for the entire family. Some adoptive parents are also grieving their own fertility struggles. There is a deep tangle of emotions behind our news of becoming parents. Keeping our adoption process quiet until it was certain was also a practical decision for me. If people are too empathetic or kind to me, I start tearing up. I could function better in my work, instead of dissolving into a puddle, if nobody knew the fears and desperate hopes occupying my mind most of the time.
During the wait for our second child, as I became visibly pregnant, our older daughter developed some new attachment issues. Viktoria was two-and-a-half years old when she joined our family through adoption and had never shown any separation anxiety when attending preschool or other group activities. She had cheerfully waved goodbye and gone back to playing. But now, at almost four, our Vikta had to be carried out of the sanctuary sobbing if she could not be near me. It is very challenging to deliver the words of institution or distribute communion with a child attached to one’s leg. I would try to lead her to the back of the sanctuary during the sharing of the peace, so my husband could quickly get her out the door before she became distinctly not peaceful as the liturgy continued. The wait for her younger sister changed how we all felt about and approached our family participating in church. If there was a reason I could think of—a meeting after worship, or confirmation classes all afternoon—we would all breathe a sigh of relief that my husband and daughter should stay at home instead of commuting across town with me for the unpredictable ordeal. Congregation members asked about our daughter and missed seeing her, but I could not function as a pastor otherwise. Had I been more confident in blending my mom and pastor identities, or in the congregation’s ability to embrace or support those two fully on display together, I might have handled that phase differently. Maybe I would have seen the opportunity to preach about God as mother and embody it. But at the time I was simply attempting to survive the painful phase. In her limited vocabulary for many months afterward, even once I was officially “on leave from call” and we were worshiping at a new church, Vikta summarized: “Me cry old church. Wanna be with Mama whole time.” I remember, baby, and it was almost more than I could stand.
Becoming a mother told every other mother how vulnerable I had become. My heart is walking around in the world with my children and I would do anything for the love of them. Mothers can embody the meaning of “to lay down one’s life” for another (John 15:13). That makes me incredibly vulnerable. I never put into words publicly how much the process of becoming Viktoria’s mother pulled apart my heart or hers and put them back together again in a new formation, but other mothers can guess. The closest question people asked about my transformation was, “How are you adjusting?” to which my answer had to be, “immediately.”
Just as congregations have a limited perspective on the pastor’s family planning, Christians have little to go on when we wonder about God’s motivations for relating to us as a parent. We only see now as if in a mirror dimly, as 1 Corinthians 13 puts it, and admittedly through our own biases. Why did God want to nurture children in God’s own image? Do any parent’s intentions end up matching reality anyway? Christians can speculate among ourselves, but we only have God’s actions described in Genesis or the Gospels, not the emotional backstory. Why—in our creation stories—does God choose to parent older human beings first (Adam and Eve), instead of making newborns, who are so much more easily influenced and molded? Why does God choose to “adopt” Abraham, then create Jesus by birth?
Waiting seems to be key to becoming parents and prepares us for this identity. What if planting the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in the midst of the garden was not designed to test Adam and Eve’s faithfulness? What if it was done so that God could wait, then mother the two through their mistakes? God and human beings could thereby become family. The children’s defiance can be assumed in the plot of humankind (we know what we are like). But through presenting a choice, in the form of a tree bearing tantalizing fruit, the creator-creature relationship turned into a parent-child relationship. This relationship is even more fundamental to our identity and faith than the original sin. The pattern of every biblical story from then on becomes thus: we think we know better, but God will never stop loving us through every failure. God will be there, as a mother who cannot let us suffer without experiencing great agony herself, to pick up our pieces. God waited for her children to act independently, giving them the means to make the choice, but preparing them to make the right one. If we are going to see the time in Eden as any kind of test, perhaps it is one of God, mothering for the first time. God becomes a mother when she has to abandon parenting by decree and adjust to loving children through the consequences of their defiant actions. God no longer operates on the premise “Let there be . . . and it was so” because loving parents know that is never the end of the story.
What is a mothering God’s first step following the admission of Adam and Eve’s guilt? She makes them clothes herself. God knows the human beings are ashamed; that is the natural consequence of having their eyes opened to what they have done. Yet God does not dismiss their actions. There are consequences, and God will let them live with them. God takes her time and demonstrates loving care to meet their new needs, created by their defiance. The act of sewing clothes for Adam and Eve is what mothers do. We make a way for our children to move forward, even when they do not deserve it, creating an opportunity to learn to recover from their failures, not simply to follow directions blindly. This loving nurture is even more potent when done with our own hands (sewing those clothes ourselves). I would stitch these words onto my children if I could: “I forgive you. You are not to be ashamed. You are my child.” From this point forward, God’s entire story contained in the Bible is defined by interaction with her children. In the visions of Revelation, the martyrs are again clothed by God, in robes washed in the blood of the Lamb. It is all consuming, being a mother; it takes over the narrative about who we are and what we are about in the world. Although we certainly
