No one told me about the stretch marks that come after the baby is born.
Oh, I’d been amply warned of the blemishes that accompany pregnancy.
I remember sitting in the waiting room with my firstborn tucked safely inside of me, his tiny form no bigger than a grain of rice. And as I’d flipped through a pregnancy magazine and munched on saltines to keep the morning nausea at bay, a seasoned mom had willingly filled me in on my soon-to-come reality. While shushing a drippy-nosed toddler and digging through a diaper bag the size of the state of Texas, she’d told me about stomach skin pulled like silly putty and salmon-hued stripes that would forever bear witness to the life that was blooming beneath my heart. I’d listened with a mixture of angst and awe, and I’d tried to imagine what I would look like with a baby bump that swallowed my waistline.
As my pregnancy progressed, I was enlightened on the marvels of Udder Cream and the wonders of vitamin E. I was advised to moisturize and exercise. I asked questions of toddler-toting survivors whose stomachs had once surrendered to jeans with extra panels and bellybutton hugging underwear. I read and re-read the tattered pages of my hand-me-down copy of What to Expect When You’re Expecting.
But somewhere in the middle of that third trimester, as my stomach swelled and my thighs softened and bulged, I made a deliberate decision to stop worrying about the stretch and the streaks.
I chose to reconcile the marring with the miracle. Even at the tender age of twenty-five, I seemed to innately know that a few stretch marks were a cheap price to pay for the riches of motherhood. Five babies later, I still believe that’s true.
The c-section scar, the bruised blotches on my thighs, the unsolicited skin streaks that refuse to tan. None of those really matter. They’re just personal tattoos of God’s amazing grace.
The visible marks I can live with.
It’s the invisible ones that bring me to my knees.
What I didn’t know seventeen years ago, as I slathered Udder Cream across my midsection and prayed that my tensile tummy would one day fit back into normal jeans, was that the battle scars on my skin would never rival the stretch marks on my heart. In time, my stomach would recover a semblance of its original shape, but my heart never would.
I remember how my body had ached when my pregnancies were finished, how pieces and parts of me that I’d never noticed before had cried in protest after nine months of being extended and jostled by the inhabitant in my womb. But more shocking than the sore muscles and weakened core was the ache that established residence in my heart from the moment my first wrinkly-skinned miracle was placed in my arms.
More disturbing than flaccid abs and sagging skin was the way this new thing called mother love took root in the depths of my soul and stretched my heart to capacity day after passing day.
I’d never cried over the injustice of starving children before, but I baptized the rocking chair with tears the first time I heard the hushed coos of the suckling baby at my breast. Because in the 2 A.M. quiet, I realized that somewhere else in the world there was a mama whose wee one wailed in hunger, and there’d be no food to quell his cries.
I’d never ached for orphans when I was lying in the comfort of my own bed, but the first time I slid into the bottom bunk of my feverish toddler and wrapped my arms around his sweaty frame, my stomach lurched in grief. Because I knew that somewhere on this big blue globe a motherless child lay alone in the dark with sweltering skin and shaking limbs.
Motherhood made my heart swell in prayer and my soul stretch with a timeless, nameless pain. And on many days, I wished my insides would just return to their old shape.
I wanted my heart to grow firm again so I could walk by a noisy playground without looking for the child on the fray. I wanted my soul to shrink so I could zip through the grocery store without noticing the lonely mama whose hands were full and eyes were empty.
I wished there were a salve for the soul.
I wanted a quick-fix; a simple solution.
But as my children grew, I discovered it wasn’t just injustice that left my heart stretched and thin; it was beauty, as well.
It was the smell of a soft sweaty head leaning against my chest as the sun rose, the sound of sisters giggling in their bunk beds while the stars illuminated the night. It was the feel of those chubby baby fingers wrapped around mine as we crossed the street and the sight of dirty-kneed children chasing their shadows on the sidewalk-chalked driveway. Motherhood opened my eyes to the glory in the grit and left my stretched-out soul aching with the wonder of it all.
After four babies, I finally asked God for a new heart, one without all the stretch marks.
I told Him I couldn’t breathe.
But my prayers fell on deaf ears. Or upon sovereign grace.
So I kept rocking babies and folding underwear and gasping in prayer when my heart threatened to burst. And then, one day, I encountered a mom who taught me how to breathe through the ache.
Inhale grace. Exhale gratitude.
CPR for the stretching soul.
She taught me to look for the gifts scattered broadside from Heaven’s hand and to recognize the beauty in the bedlam, the marvels in the mess. Sometimes I wrote them down, these gifts of grace, in a little notebook that sat on my kitchen counter.
Other times, I just named them out loud wherever I was, in the mini-van and the laundry room, in the backyard and at the park.
And, slowly, I trained my eyes to see the audacious grace that colored my days– the toothless grins and the dancing feet, the I’m sorry’s and I love you’s.
I learned to feast on the daily bread of small blessings, to look for manna in the moment and trust my Maker with all the moments yet to come.
And suddenly, my soul didn’t feel wounded and raw.
I practiced thankfulness day after diaper-changing day until one morning I realized that I’d learned to breathe anew–naming gifts and proffering praise; inhaling grace and exhaling gratitude.
It was Udder Cream for a stretching soul; Heaven’s salve for a hurting heart.
Every time my toddler brought me a dandelion bouquet and I gave thanks for weeds of beauty, every time I listened to the ring of my teenager’s laughter and offered praise for the sound; every time I admitted I wasn’t enough and turned to the One who is, I’d feel the stretch and accept the ache.
I’d reconcile the marring with the miracle.
Eventually, I began to view those stretch marks on my soul much like the stretch marks on my skin, as tattoos of His amazing grace.
And in time, I stopped begging God for a new heart.
Because a Mama’s heart is a gift that drives her straight into the arms of Jesus.
Maybe that’s why last month when I stood at the ocean’s edge and watched my firstborn wading beside his little brother in the brilliant blue, I let the ache roll over me like the morning tide.
And when fear threatened to strangle my peace as I remembered that big brother has only two years left beneath our roof, I exhaled thanks for the boy turning into a man right before my eyes.
My boys bent low to search for sea-shells along the shore, and I stood there on the sand and thanked Jesus for the way He stoops beside me, holding me up with hands marred by marks of love.
And though my heart threatened to split open right right there on the beach like the empty crab shells scattered at my feet, I let the ache rise as steady as my humble sacrifice of praise and I breathed deep like a mama giving birth all over again.
Inhaling grace, exhaling praise. Because that’s how a mama labors day after day, birthing gratitude and embracing life that is really life (John 10:10).
Then, I kicked off my shoes and sauntered toward the water where my treasure-hunters stood, my heart aching and my feet burning quiet atop the sun-scorched sand.
Because motherhood is a daily walk on holy ground, and with the marring always comes a miracle.
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