'You can't know something until you know it'

In college I had a mentor who taught me many things I cannot put into words. But one of those things she put into words herself, and I have never forgotten them: “You can’t know something until you know it.”

By this I think she meant I should be patient with myself, and even with the person I used to be, taking into account that no one is born knowing everything. Wisdom comes from experience. We only get experience by living, so when we are young we sometimes do not yet know how to be wise. If you understand this, you can give yourself and others grace.

I’ve been thinking about this lesson during the past three months as I’ve watched my baby learn to smile, then coo, then grow so tall her clothes no longer fit around her shoulders. When I first learned I was pregnant last spring, I couldn’t know what I didn’t know. I was terrified that having a child would somehow subtract life from my days. I thought I would never write my book, talk to grown-ups anymore, have a clean house, be skinny, or learn to draw. I thought my dreams wouldn’t come true. For some reason, though my head knew it, my emotions never registered the obvious principle that a new life would bring life, not death. I even felt the terrifying impulse women might feel before they get abortions: Something in my body is about to change my life radically, and maybe in a way I will not like. Can’t I go to the doctor and have this fixed? It was the words of God, and not my feelings, that told me what had happened in my body was sacred, mysterious, and stamped with the image of the Creator.

Since my daughter Bravery’s birth, I have met a few young women in a familiar stage: knowing they want to have children someday but worried that doing so will cut the pleasures of their life short. I have told them all what has surprised me most about motherhood—that having a child makes every day more fun. I tell them that every day I wake up and see my baby I feel like I’ve just had a fantastic sleepover with a new best friend. I tell them that I even find working and cleaning more fun than I used to. I give them good news from a far country, because that’s what I needed most when I was looking at the pregnancy test I thought sealed my doom. I tell them what Leslie Knope said in Parks and Recreation: You don’t have kids because the timing is perfect. You have kids because you and your husband have a great team, and you want to bring in some more players.

I also remember the words of my mentor, and know a young woman probably cannot understand the pleasure of motherhood in her heart until God gives her a child. But I brag on motherhood anyway, because our culture tells us wrong. It tells us that new life brings death to our social lives and dreams. But life brings life. And life with a child is going to be better than you could ever have imagined.