“About that time, Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and John baptized him in the Jordan River. While he was coming up out of the water, Jesus saw heaven splitting open and the Spirit, like a dove, coming down on him. And there was a voice from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I dearly love; in you I find happiness.”
At once the Spirit forced Jesus out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan. He was among the wild animals, and the angels took care of him.”
+Mark 1: 9-13, CEB

As my son, Cedar, was crowning I felt like I was being split in two. God’s spirit descended on me, pronounced Cedar born and me alive, and then I was thrust into the wilderness. The postpartum wilderness. Slapped once more with the shocking limits of my capacity, the long days followed by long nights, the oozing fluids and bloody tissues, the forty days of steady hormone drops. Satan tempted me hard. Violent, invasive images of harm befalling Cedar climaxed one day at home alone with the boys. Both my then-two-and-a-half-year-old and four-month-old were screaming their faces off at the same time. I remember standing in my kitchen, unshowered, hair a mess, spirit crumpling, holding my fussy baby while my toddler angrily begged for more of me and I thought I could just throw Cedar down the stairs. Then there would be one less demand on me.

“…as it stands, motherhood is a sort of wilderness through which each woman hacks her way, part martyr, part pioneer; a turn of events from which some women derive feelings of heroism while others experience a sense of exile from the world they knew.”
+Rachel Cusk

That was one year ago this month. February 2019. I swiftly found a psychiatrist who put me on Zoloft for anxiety and began weekly visits with a wonderful therapist who specialized in postpartum mental health. I almost entered a day program for women and their babies suffering in this way.

Wilderness: the place where your identity is tested, where the evil one taunts you, where the angels take care of you.

For many of us, the fourth trimester and all the months that follow in the postpartum period can be described as a wilderness.

Both times, I experienced a glorious first week postpartum, filled to the brim with oxytocin at its finest: obsessed with my new baby, stroking his hair, sniffing his intoxicating head, kissing his fleshy, lanugo-covered body.

And both times I began to slip into depression and anxiety around four months postpartum, after the immediate support died down.

This wilderness exposed the worst of me. I felt purpose-less, benched from my other “more important” duties in society, so angry that often the most I could show for my days was a once empty dishwasher now filled with myriad cheerio-caked bowls.

Was this really my life?

In the lowest of lows, a poem spilled out of me:

my life is littered with
trains and toy cars
and various
shopping
bags
filled with books and old
receipts
with creeping despair
and dust bunnies
with calendar reminders
milk-filmed pump parts
laundry
re-washed thrice
neglected and forgotten,
victim to the Groundhog days
I am living.
My laptop screen is cracked
and mirrors
my
sanity.
Overwhelmed.
Jesus, can you be even here?
I need help.
My weeks feel like
homes
of cards
and one
small
detour or
departure
sends them all
down
down
down
like my head into my hands.
I know the work I must do
to climb out of this pit
But the mere thought of sinking fingers into
clod
and mustering my unused muscles
to climb
or crawl
upward
leaves me defeated
Can someone get down here and help me out?

Can someone get down here and help me out?

That’s how it feels, sometimes, in the wilderness.

Here are some notes from this week’s text that bring me deep comfort:

God was the force behind this entrance into desert. If God’s behind it, God is in it. God has made it. It cannot exist outside of God’s presence.
Wilderness almost always follows a declaration of identity, a new birth. In every season of my life when God births clarity in me about who and whose I am, a season of testing follows. This could be seen as cruel, sure, but this is also science. We are in late February. Farmers have been growing seedlings indoors in warm and loving environments to become sturdy plants that can be planted outdoors after the first frost. There is a gardening term called hardening when you take that little 1-2 inch seedling that has just shot up out of the earth and you carefully, deliberately expose it to the harsh elements. Why? The resistance forces the roots of that little seedling to grow thicker, deeper and more resilient so that it can truly flourish and multiply 30, 60 and 100 fold. The postpartum period tests our new motherhood, it reveals all the things our identity rooted itself in before it was completely disrupted by this new life, and it will force you to put your roots deep into good soil to come out on the other side alive, strong, persevering and resilient.
The angels tended to Jesus. While it doesn’t say that God-God-self walked with Jesus into the wilderness, God did not send Jesus alone. When I am in wilderness seasons, God’s familiar location in my life feels hauntingly empty. I feel exposed and naked, and very vulnerable. But God sends angels to tend to me. Something of the divine, yet qualitatively different; Supernatural strength and help to remind me to be rooted in God (as the story goes in other Gospel accounts, Jesus stays rooted in the Word, which is of course the Christ, and stands firm in his identity).
Your angels might looks like 200mg of Lexapro or Zoloft daily, paired with angels of psychotherapists, angels of midwives who call you regularly to check in, angels of praying mothers who text you Scripture verses, and angels of praying best friends who take you out for a beer and remind you that this too shall pass, angels of partners or husbands who practice presence and take the screaming baby while you catch your breath, angels of liturgies written thousands of years ago so that you don’t have to scrape for spiritual and emotional energy that simply is not there. The angels will care for you in this crucible of the desert.

Here we are, approaching the first Sunday of Lent 2020.

Tell me, friend, are you in a wilderness? What are you observing? How are you feeling? How is God sending angels to tend to you?

Resources:

This song literally carried me in my postpartum period with Cedar.

If you live in Rhode Island, Connecticut or the Boston area, this was how I found my therapist and I think the platform is my favorite yet for finding good mental health care. It’s a beautiful user experience, the therapists post introductory videos of themselves and pictures of their office so you really know what to expect ahead of time and of course you can filter for your type of health insurance, various specializations you’re looking for (PTSD, grief, postpartum etc.)

ZENCARE