Interruptions. The word came to mind on my drive to work during my third trimester. I noticed a man on the side of the road who needed help. I was running behind, so I kept driving. I justified myself, “If only I had time, I could stop and help him. What a shame.”
No sooner had I thought that, another voice tugged in my spirit, whispering, “Motherhood will be full of interruptions.”
A strange feeling washed over me. Sinking, almost. I could not avoid it. A life of interruptions was to be my fate. A life of allowing my good, curated schedule to be wrecked. A life of not always knowing how to best plan, and finding peace in that.
I looked ahead with dread, gratitude, conviction, and joy.
I was not cut out for a life of interruptions.
The word crossed my mind again last week.
The word interruption.
I spent, what felt like, most of the morning trying to get the baby nap out of my arms. I paused the folding of laundry to soothe him. Stacks of shirts and piles of socks surrounded us as I rocked him to sleep, knowing he naps best close to me and there was no chance of letting him down. Not if my goal was for him to rest and rest well, anyway.
I stepped over the hill of wrinkled, unfolded clothes as I held my baby close.
The laundry would still be there when he no longer needed me, so I relished the interruption.
I reheated a bowl of soup for a late lunch around 2:00. I had just sliced an avocado and picked up the baby to sit at the table. But I caught a whiff. I held my breath as a yellow stain appeared from the top of his diaper and slowly spread up to his shoulders. I carried him upstairs and began to undress him, only to realize there would be poop from his head to his toes by the end of this.
“Bathe him,” I thought.
Down we went back to the kitchen, passing the bowl of soup to fill the sink with soap bubbles. We played in the suds for a bit as the soup cooled, and then I carried him back up the stairs.
That interruption cooled my soup. And I guess I should have been peeved, but my baby rested in my lap and that nourished us both in ways the soup couldn’t.
I put the baby down for a nap. Taking the opportunity to do something quiet and for myself, I made a cup of hot cocoa, opened a Word document, and began writing. Free writing, not stopping for spelling errors or backspacing my way to a more perfect sentence.
I neared a page when I heard a cry. I came over to console him. His eyes widened with tears. I picked him up and forgot about the page.
In faith I later saved and closed the document, trusting that whatever God would want to teach through my words would not be lost to the interruptions he allowed in my day.
The me from 6 months ago was afraid of the interruptions.
She didn’t see a way that she could ever be a person who welcomes pauses and breaks in the day. She didn’t want to be an “unproductive” person. That was her biggest fear. She couldn’t imagine a life in which her lists weren’t checked off and her goals weren’t written down.
But Jesus welcomes interruptions.
We see it when he goes out of his way to the woman at the well and calls Zacchaeus down from the tree to make sudden dinner plans. We know it through the way that he is always available to us. He’s got the whole world in his hands, and yet, he delights in every moment I draw near to him.
My sin is the fear of interruptions. His glory is the redemption of interruptions.
There’s wisdom to be found on earth in our to-do lists and goals. But at the end of the day, these are not required in our journey to glory. Jesus lived the most glorious life on earth. I suppose he could have had to-do lists and an unwavering commitment to the things on them, but it would have been costly in that era – not just financially, but to his ministry.
What I see of Jesus in the Bible, and in his work in the lives around me, compels me to believe that he’s a God that gravitates toward the need. And he meets us there with grace and compassion, not daring to rush our hearts or shame us for interfering with his agenda.
His only agenda is interruptible, selfless love for us.
The welcoming of compassion-filled interruptions embodies his agenda. His only agenda is interruptible, selfless love for us. By his grace, when we put everything aside to be interrupted our hearts are bent a little more in line with his.
The me of 6 months ago needed every grace up to this day to welcome the interruptions. I stumble still, but I look back at the overarching theme of my postpartum season and see how he has grown me to be the person I never thought I could be. God does not hurry the work in our lives but works with patience.
It takes faith to leave your agenda for the interruptible agenda of God’s. But take heart, there is nothing in your day that has not been allowed by God. And even if you “accomplish” nothing on your lists today, you have grown nearer to the Lord and drawn others nearer to him too.
That’s the greatest accomplishment you could seek. Let’s believe, in faith that the interruptions are good and sacred.
Cheering you on in the work of living a good and interruptible life.