Especially when the sunrise catches in the bushes, sliding across the sidewalk, gilding every zinnia and robin in its path another day’s on the cusp of unfurling, and I am bursting with possibility and hope,
Especially when two fair-haired boys melt their bodies against mine, sleep dusting their eye creases, last night’s dreams curling in the air like the steam rising off my morning coffee and though the clock tick tick ticks and the piled dishes beckon, Creativity calls me (and I am not one to ignore *her* messages),
Especially when I’ve just read something positively delicious my cup is full — no, overflowing — and my time is scarce the page is blank and ready to be storied I must write. What better time to spin beauty and truth into gold than the present?
// a response to “Especially when,” a prompt from Callie Feyen, Kaitlin Rogers, Jenna Brack, Megan Willome and others
You might have a copy of our book on your nightstand or have gifted it to friends. You may have attended a book event, prayed for us, sent encouraging messages, joined our blog tour, posted about our book on social media or reviewed The Beauty of Motherhood on Amazon and elsewhere. What’s more, you’ve been recommending this book to other mamas looking for spiritual refreshment. For all that and more, thank you!
As our initial promotions for The Beauty of Motherhood close out, I’m taking a moment to celebrate this little pink book and its big message of grace.
Virtual Book Launch
On March 28, the evening our book launched, Kim and I gathered for a virtual launch party on Zoom, hosted by our friend, author Ellie Roscher. We shared two readings from The Beauty of Motherhood, then joined in conversation with Ellie about faith, our writing process and takeaways from writing this book. I found myself overwhelmed with gratitude for my coauthor Kim and for the small band of friends that joined us to celebrate. Our host’s warm presence made it a meaningful evening for all.
Local Launch Event
The morning of my local book launch, I stood in my church sanctuary, clutching my phone as messages trickled in. Two friends’ kids were sick. Another two were tied up with other commitments. A pit formed in my stomach. Would anyone (other than my family) show up? Would I be able to speak eloquently?
Little by little, the pews filled — with friends, fellow church members and my family. Soon we had a small crowd, but I couldn’t shake the tightness that had lodged itself in my gut. I felt the fright you feel at the top of a climbing wall, just before you release your grip and rappel to the earth. I worried: What if I crash?
Then I surveyed the scene. I saw my pastors, and the kind souls who came to hear me read. You are safe, their eyes said. It’s okay to let go.
I stepped into the center of the sanctuary. I felt the heft of my stories in my hands. It was time to release these stories, trusting they would land with their intended readers. I let the Spirit lead me until I was touching solid ground.
photo by Will Nunnally
As I read, which was a new experience for me, my heart began to calm. I reveled in the audience’s bursts of laughter and audible sighs. When their final applause washed over me, I felt a deep sense of peace. They convinced me that the countless hours of work and vulnerability Kim and I poured into this devotional are indeed serving a greater purpose — to connect others with God’s abundant love.
Photo by Will Nunnally
After my reading, I spent time on stage immersed in conversation with my pastor. We discussed what it means to raise children in faith and the challenges we experience along the way. We reflected on how to model forgiveness for our children, and how to be curious together about our faith questions and doubts. Afterwards, I signed copies of books for those present. By the end of our gathering, my cheeks hurt from smiling. At each point during this special day, I had the sense I was being held by my friends, my family and God.
Barnes & Noble Signing
The weekend before Mother’s Day, my local Barnes & Noble hosted me for a book signing. I had a table near the entrance to greet and connect with new readers who were looking for gifts. A handful decided a signed copy of The Beauty of Motherhood would be a good option for their loved ones, which delighted me.
In addition, many of the friends who couldn’t make it to my launch event popped in to have their books signed, which brought tears of joy to my eyes. While I would much rather stay in my writer’s cave than be out in public, this event moved me and reminded me that connecting with readers is more fun than scary. The experience was both humbling and holy.
Connecting with Moms’ Groups
Image courtesy of Immanuel Lutheran Church in Batavia
In April and May, I had opportunities to connect with local parents’ groups both online and in person to offer selected readings from The Beauty of Motherhood and facilitate group discussion. There’s nothing I love more than being in conversation with others about books, and to hear readers respond to the prompts we included with our devotions was such a treat.
Although I entered these group settings as a discussion facilitator, I found myself comforted and convicted by the stories of those who joined us. These gatherings have been powerful, meaningful and Spirit-led. I pray that all attendees walked away nourished by the gifts of community.
If you have a parents’/moms’ group in your church, school or neighborhood that might benefit from a book study of The Beauty of Motherhood, I’d love to hear from you! Use my contact form to be in touch with me via email.
What’s next
Summer’s right around the corner, which means I’m leaning into rest and time with my two boys while I recover from the mental and spiritual challenges of book marketing.
Later this year I have some events in the works, including another local book study and an upcoming women’s conference at which Kim and I will be workshop facilitators. If you’d like to be the first to know about my upcoming events, you can sign up for my monthly newsletter, Nourish.
I’m deeply grateful for each and every act of support readers have offered during book launch season. While my coauthor Kim and I share a byline for The Beauty of Motherhood, we know it takes a village to birth a book. Thank you for being part of ours!
“I don’t know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed” — Mary Oliver, from “The Summer Day”
I stand in an open field, watching for signs of rain. An hour ago, I hollered to my family, “I’ll be back later!” and strode toward the woods outside our neighborhood. I walked and walked until my legs ached and landed here—in the company of fading wildflowers.
Gray clouds coat the sky. Somewhere not far from here, leaves are burning. Their scent twists and lingers in the air like incense.
Walking usually soothes my nerves, but today my whole body feels restless. It’s been half a year since my husband and I pulled our son Jack out of preschool due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Months without childcare support have left me utterly exhausted, but I can’t go home. Not yet. A friend once told me she finds peace by grounding herself. I take her advice and collapse into a cross-legged position. Then, instinctively, I fold my hands to pray.
Images clip through my mind’s eye. Another negative pregnancy test in the garbage. My son playing alone in our backyard. Another period come and gone. Why can’t I get pregnant again?
The calendar turning—my 35th birthday marching closer. When Jack asked, “Mom, can we get a baby?” Another pregnancy announcement. Please help me.
A breeze rustles through my coat, and I blink my eyes open, watching it wave through straw-colored prairie grass. I splay out my legs, roll onto my back, and shift my gaze toward the hazy heavens.
God, I think, twitching at a hair that blows across my forehead, are you out there?
Because he woke up early from his nap. Because he was calling “Ma-ma! Ma-ma!” Because when I collected him from the crib, he nestled his head against my shoulder. Because he needed more sleep. Because I needed him, too. Because I could *not* answer another email or tidy another toy or wash another dish. Because being his safe space is more important to me than being productive. Because even though sleep experts say to avoid “bad habits,” they can’t deny that nursing a baby to sleep is positively delicious. Because he just turned one, and his babyhood is slipping away like fine sand. Because an hour ago, he stuck his hand in the toilet, then dumped out the dog’s water bowl and wailed when I changed his diaper and I just needed to recall his sweetness. Because here, in the curve of my arms, he looks like an angel. Because he is likely my last child. Because one day I’ll tell him, “When you were a baby, your favorite place to fall asleep was in my arms.” Because he’s not ready to give this up. Because I can’t let this go — not yet. Because someday I’ll look back on this season — when the house was a mess and I wore tiredness like a uniform and my baby stuck to me like my shadow — and realize all of it was magic.
If you liked this post, you may enjoy my book, The Beauty of Motherhood, releasing March 21. Preorders are so important; I’d be honored if you purchased this devotional for yourself or a new mama you love. For more information, visit my book page.
It’s surreal to think that this book will be born so soon, and, to follow the birthing metaphor, the exhaustion of expectation has set in. I’m overjoyed and terrified. I’m still finishing up a few more things that need to be done before the (book) baby arrives. Everything aches, literally and figuratively.
Indeed just yesterday I came down with a dreadful set of chills, undoubtedly passed along by my sweet — but sickly — kindergartener. At bedtime, I shivered in bed under a stack of blankets, sipping tea and ruminating over the many emails I had yet to answer and the title of our book. Why had we decided on The *Beauty* of Motherhood again?
“Beauty” was the last word I’d use to describe motherhood at the moment. Overwhelming, yes. Crushing, yes. But beautiful? Well, I wasn’t feeling it after a day of struggling to care for my kids and barely hanging on to health myself. This led to an angsty journal session from which the following prayer emerged:
Dear God,
There are messes upon messes in this house, the baby and I are playing an epic game of spill or save the dog’s water bowl (for the record, I’m losing 3:1), my oldest is home sick from school and passed his cough onto me… I confess, on days like this, I count the hours until bedtime, I fantasize about being anywhere but here (Hawaii sounds nice, don’t you think?) I need a prayer to snap me out of this funk.
After bedtime, instead of praying, I open my photo app on my phone and see life more clearly how my oldest wrapped his arms around his baby brother in the kiddie cart at the grocery store, how my baby isn’t much of a baby anymore, he’s toddling here – there – everywhere
and, I forgot to take a picture, but a few days ago my oldest lost a tooth and found he could read Go Dog Go on his own and you know I took a picture of that (!),
I took a picture of light cascading through the trees when we visited the playground, I took a picture of my shadow while I held my youngest, his weight pressing against me,
Thank you for this weight, O God, for this humbling, holy call for the privilege to nurture my children
Let me taste it all — their sweetness and sourness Let me embrace it all — our messes and our milestones Let me hear it all — the cacophony and melody of grace in their small voices
Let me feel the beauty of motherhood again.
Amen.
My friend Kim and I wrote The Beauty of Motherhood for every mama searching for spiritual refreshment while raising young children. As moms in the thick of the early years, we’re acutely aware that the messages of grace we crafted for readers’ growth are words we still need to hear — daily.
Because we know motherhood manifests in a variety of ways and thus, our stories are limited, we encouraged our reader to share her story, too. I adore connecting with other mothers through storytelling, and so, to both raise awareness of our book and elevate the stories of other mothers whose backgrounds contrast ours, my coauthor Kim and I organized a Writing Tour for The Beauty of Motherhood. Over the course of this March and April, mothers in our network whose voices we admire will respond to the prompt, What does the beauty of motherhood look like in your life? Our first writers will debut their stories this week.
Kim and I will be sharing these stories on social media, and you can follow along on Instagram with me (@erinstrybis) and Kim (@kknowlezeller) and #thebeautyofmotherhood. All are welcome to join in this writing tour, simply tag us when you write and we’ll share with our networks. At the close of the series we’ll offer a concluding post that links to each story.
You are an athlete. You sprint across the soccer field, swing from the monkey bars, scale trees, slides and rocks then leap into your next adventure. Motion is your oxygen.
You were an angel in the Christmas play, and though you wouldn’t wear your wings (“too scratchy”) and you might have ignored a few stage cues, you sang so sweetly to baby Jesus. You have an active, playful faith — and a propensity for mischief.
You want to be a “scientist who mixes chemicals” for work, and like your dad, you have a knack for numbers.
Yet, to me, you bear the soul of an artist: You splash color and doodles outside the lines of your kindergarten assignments, you’re the one who says “First, I have to show you something beautiful,” you’re always building something or in the middle of an epic Lego story. Your imagination is boundless. You have a big heart and a lot of love to give, like your mama.
Much of my work in midlife, I recently realized, is launching you into this stunning, cruel, crazy world, where there are dreams to chase and gorgeous places to explore and stories to discover.
My wish for you at six is that you never forget who and whose you are, beloved child. The world will try to stifle your kindness and your sense of wonder. Don’t let it. Cling to hope. Trust your faithful foundation. Use your gifts to spread peace and healing to everyone you encounter. Make your mark: Keep playing and caring and creating.
Happy sixth birthday to the boy who made me a mama.
stars glittering the night sky, when I’m up late feeding the baby, falling into bed & the arms of my spouse for a few more hours of sleep before daybreak fresh coffee & hot oatmeal little hands reaching for me for games of peekaboo songs & cuddles for the wide embrace of our village — grandparents dear friends good neighbors teachers pediatricians therapists our congregation — with whom we raise our children for music while I’m doing dishes and folding warm towels just out of the dryer for naptime, blessed naptime, a moment of peace amidst the chaos of Legos & crayons & rounds of Uno & kitchen dance parties & “another snack please!” & playdates & playgrounds & tag long walks in the neighborhood the scent of burning leaves & the way sunight catches in the leaves at golden hour dinner to make, bathtime bubbles & squeals, for sharing stories & poetry & prayers, goodnight kisses & “I love you”s & when the dog curls up on my lap & the whole house is quiet holding a freshly sharpened pencil & a blank page on which to praise this one holy and beautiful life.
I would like to create a home in which there are rarely any messes, but that seems impossible given the fact that children live here, considering the Legos that sprinkle our playroom floor and prick our soles, a deck of cards fanned out across the coffee table, oodles of library books littering the kids’ bedrooms, each object a portal to another realm where imagination reigns and couch cushions meld into the body of a race car, a swingset transforms into a shuttle rocketing to Mars, stones unearthed from the flowerbeds become marble.
“We could be rich!” my son cries, cradling his prizes, holding them out to me like offering. Dirt speckles his grin, dresses his hands and feet, piles next to him on the patio, I sigh, send him to rinse up, pick up my phone and scroll the news, confronting a barrage of harshness. I sigh again, but he laughs, unaware, spraying his palms clean with the garden hose — or is it a fire-breathing dragon?
(I would like to create a world in which there are rarely any messes but that seems impossible given the fact that humans live here, and they keep hurting each other.)
I glance at my son’s hands, fresh and five years young, whatever they graze shape-shifts from ordinary to extraordinary. Could they fashion marble from our muck? Maybe we could be rich.
This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale — an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in the series “Ordinary Inspiration.”
Some days I am more wolf than woman, andI am still learning how to stop apologizing for my wild. —Nikita Gill
When the news breaks over NPR, I don’t handle it well. I hear the words “shooting” and “elementary school” and flick the radio off in an instant. Shoulders tense, I ease our SUV forward through a crowded intersection while my mind churns backwards, grasping for names: Stoneman Douglas. Columbine. Sandy Hook. (Later, a principal I know posts on his timeline a list of U.S. schools traumatized by gun violence. It is 245 lines deep.)
“What happened, Mom?” My five-year-old calls out from the backseat of our SUV. His three-month-old brother fusses next to him, hungry.
I stare out at the graveyard we pass daily on our commute home from preschool and try to make sense of this moment. Miles away in Uvalde, Texas, there are moms and dads who won’t pick up their children from school tonight. Oh God, those parents…
“Mom?”
“Something really terrible happened, sweetheart,” I say, keeping my voice steady. I should be trembling, I should be sobbing, but instead I’m numb to this fresh punch of violence (I’m still trying to process/grieve the last two mass shootings). I need to tell my oldest what’s going on, but I can’t bring myself to say it. Not yet.
Last week, we visited his new elementary school for an open house. My incoming kindergartener wore a blue dress shirt and his dad helped him comb and part his golden hair. Hand tight in mine, he roamed the halls, later breaking free to run up the staircase and skim his fingers over the desks in various classrooms. I watched him, so tall and so curious, beaming with pride. How would he grow here? Who would he become?
Today’s news reminds me that kindergarten is the milestone I’ve been dreading since he was a tiny babe fluttering inside my belly. Because I live in the U.S., where we ask school age children to kneel under their desks for active shooter drills and pray ours will be lucky enough to graduate alive rather than make meaningful cultural and legislative changes to prevent school shootings. Statistically, these events are rare but the terror that it could happen to us haunts me. In 2018 with a pack of angry parents, I walked Chicago’s streets holding a sign that read “I’m marching for my son,” hoping against hope that by the time he got to kindergarten our country would address this travesty. Shamefully, we haven’t.
The baby wiggles and fusses in my arms as I unearth him from the carseat to nurse and send his older brother to fetch himself an applesauce. Once they’re fed, I busy myself cooking dinner and scrolling. Distracted, I’m slow to marinate and bake the tofu, and I also miss tired cues from my youngest. When my husband gets home, it’s clear to him the baby needs a nap.
Overtired wails fill the walls of our home but fail to loosen the primal scream caught in my throat. 19 innocent babies gunned down by a guy with an AR-15. Two teachers too. What kind of madness is this? My husband is on baby duty, and I keep fixing dinner, but I want so badly to stop and wail with our child.
When the tofu bowls are ready, I can’t eat. Instead I go to the nursery, scoop up our babe and nurse him down to sleep in the rocking chair, one hand cradling his body while the other grips my smart phone. I scroll, scroll, scroll. I text a friend: I feel gutted. Then I close my apps and make a donation to Everytown for Gun Safety.
For the remainder of the night, I stay there, clutching my youngest. He sleeps comfortably in my arms. I sleep fitfully, waking often to turn the news over in my mind and debate our school choices. Could I homeschool? If I keep my five-year-old here with us will that be enough to keep him safe? Should we relocate to Canada? Like a wolf in her den, I scan my environment for threats, afraid to release my pups because what if they are hunted?
In the morning, I nurse the baby and change his diaper. I make a plan to contact my senators, Dick and Tammy, when the house is quiet. I kiss my eldest twice and hug him hard before he leaves with his dad for preschool. “I love you, Mom!” he cries, light-up Sketchers flashing in the doorway. “I love you too, buddy!” I whisper shakily.
All day I follow news from Robb Elementary, refreshing my Times app for updates between tummy time, naps and breastfeeding. I read about the sweet lives of the lost children and their heroic teachers. I wolf down every bite of the story I can, but my appetite — for what? a reason? a word of hope? — remains unsatisfied. There is one image I can’t get out of my head, a photograph of a woman, possibly a mother, mid-sob, her dark hair spilling over her loved one’s shoulder, where she rests her head. Her eyes are wild; she is part wolf like me. Was this the moment she heard she lost her baby?
I wonder if this is how God cries too — like a bewildered, grieving mother.
In a couple hours, I will pick up my son from preschool again, eyes watery at the sight of him. I will ask him how his day went and make him breakfast for dinner. I will tell him over pancakes what happened at Robb Elementary without giving much detail. “This makes me mad and sad,” he’ll reply. “I’m mad and sad too,” I’ll say. “So is God. God weeps with us.” My son will then ask why it happened. I’ll answer with a half-truth: I don’t know. (I do know that complacency won’t prevent future tragedies. Why are we being held back from common sense gun reform? Why haven’t we seen new mental health initiatives? Why not both? Why do many of our elected officials offer thoughts and prayers then keep doing… nothing?) We’ll hang our heads together. I’ll pray, Lord, those sweet, innocent children — our children — did not deserve this brutal ending. We don’t deserve to live like this. Lord, hear our prayer. Oh Lord, have mercy on us.
I can’t do this.
Not yet.
For the time being, I become a wolf. I hold my baby close and howl.
Erin Strybis 