I've been pondering the connections between joy and suffering quite a bit as of late. I have always considered them to be two distinct experiences that aptly describe entirely different moments in time. I am beginning to rethink that demarcation.
My son's dad recently had a daughter with his girlfriend. As any 7 year old would be, Gabe was thrilled to be a big brother. Given my inability to have biological children, the reality that my former husband now has a biological daughter is rough. Because "mom-ness" trumps all else, I keep my sadness to myself and celebrate with and for Gabe his new identity as a big brother. I'm not saying it's easy, but easy has never been an apt descriptor of motherhood.
After a bit of wallowing in being on the suffering side of this equation, I realized my divorce is, essentially, a reversal of the above. While I desperately wanted to stay married to Gabe's dad four years ago, it is now true that the divorce essentially liberated me from great pain; it has become my joy to be whole again. On the other hand, this is a great loss for Gabe. This is merely one exemplar among many that, perhaps, easy is also not an adjective often appropriate to childhood.
And I could go on....my joy as an adoptive mother is intricately tied to the suffering of an entire country. If Guatemala had not had such tumult, I would not have had the opportunity to become a mom to my wonderful Guatemalan-born son.
We aren't promised a life without suffering, and yet I still want to make meaning of how joy and suffering are often two sides of the same coin. Dog gone if I didn't wish joy was always pure. The suffering of Jesus on the cross is also the resurrecting Jesus....it was the very sacrifice of Christ that enables my new life. Perhaps the human condition reflects the interconnection of joy and sorrow in a manner that can bring us closer not only to the Christ who saves but also to the one who suffered. And knowing that Jesus suffered so, oddly, brings me comfort and a sense that I am not alone. It is the Jesus who is able to "suffer with', the etymological root of compassion, who walks alongside me, and all of us, in our suffering.
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I hope you can find, or make, spaces where mom-ness doesn't trump all else, and grieve and/or bitch and/or cry and/or process your heart out.
For me, it's my single friends who, when in a safe space, call that 'trumping' for what it is. I jump on their bandwagon from time to time to process men, sex, and suffering (usually all three simultaneously).
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