I sat in a small room under the choir loft weaving a paper basket together. My mom, our Sunday school teacher, was reading us a story from the bible. Perhaps the one about baby Moses floating down the river in his little woven basket or about Jesus multiplying a basket of fish. I interlaced my strips of paper so tightly, pulling them in and out so that they would fit snugly against each other.
I was weaving a basket to hold God’s love.
***
My mom told me that if I chose to believe, I could ask God for anything.
Alone in my bed, I wove my fingers together and curled my body around my praying fists. I asked God to stop my nightmares.
My parents fought a lot. My mother’s mother was distant and even cruel at times. My father’s father an alcoholic. My mother turned to God, my father turned to his work. When my father’s anger and absence was too much to bear, my mother asked my father for a divorce. He threatened to take us children away from her. I knew none of this. I only heard the yelling. I don’t know if it had anything to do with my nightmares, but I do know this: God heard my prayers. My nightmares vanished.
My mom asked me at age 7 if I wanted to be baptised.
“Yes,” I knowingly replied.
This God worked and I wanted more of his love. My basket was ready.
I was baptized, confirmed, I took my first communion, I wrote the kids’ column for our church newsletter, taught Sunday school, volunteered for church events, and sometimes even went to church all by myself.
I was 15-years-old and my paper woven basket was bursting with God’s love.
Then the sky blacked, and the sea turned a sickly shade of green. The tide went out, and the unseen creatures of the sea crept out. A lone, hungry crab scuttled across the sand. My basket a seemingly perfect feast.
“What! You have to go to church? What about the party?”
“Jesus was not the only person who did great things.”
“If your God is so great, why is there all this poverty and injustice?”
“Do you know what the bible says about x, y, and z. You can’t possibly believe in something that fosters so much hate.”
And the ultimate:
“Don’t let religion brainwash you. You can do what you want.You don’t need God to be a good person.”
For each statement a slip of paper was pulled out of my basket by the crab with his huge red claw. This occurred little by little over a period of 16 years. The strips of paper discarded in the surf. The crab had no use for them. Crabs cannot digest paper. The fun was in taking them away.
I became agnostic. I believed in something, but I did not know what it was. I did not need God to be a good person. This new religion was great. It was centered all around me. I hurt people along the way, but I did not feel bad about it. I was especially good at starting new relationships before the last one ended. My church said I could do whatever was in my best interest. I left people crushed by my selfish wave, the remnants of my woven paper basket disintegrating in the sea. This was the church of ME.
In this time, God watched me and all my bad decisions. God made sure that the only college that I could afford would be a chiristan one with mandatory religion classes. God never wanted me far from his word. God led me to a catholic French man, Pierre who would become my husband. God wanted to live with an example of grace.
Pierre and I had two children in a country far, far away from my home. And when the pain of homesickness and postpartum depression set in, the church of ME packed up and left like a traveling salesman. The church of ME could do nothing for my pain because the church, meaning me, was broken. I was torn apart and completely unwoven. Loneliness and despair, anger and rage towards my own family.
Thankfully, I knew how to weave.
I picked up my bible.
Jesus said in John 15, “I am the one, true vine, and my Father is the gardener. [. . .] Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself, it must remain in the vine. [. . .] I have told you all this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.”
Shortly after saying this, Jesus died. Our God, with the power to create everything from a blade of grass to a supernova in the sky, came to earth as a human. He chose to come to us and to teach us, to parent us, to take away our sins, to love us, all through Jesus’ suffering.
I went with my friend Lee to her church’s mom’s group.
I am a teacher and a parent. It takes so much time and patience to teach any skill. But when a student of mine respects me and engages with my lesson, that student learns.
I prayed out loud with others for the first time in my life.
God wants us so desperately to join him, to do our part, to be a part of his church so that we can learn, to show us that we can accomplish great things together. Not the great things that humans value like fame and wealth, but something even better.
I started teaching Sunday school again.
I tried to leave God, but God never left me. I would not wish postpartum depression on anyone, but with God’s love I sought help. I finally trusted others enough to help me. Because God never becomes unwoven or broken. God never leaves us helpless. God always provides, we just need to be willing to see the help.
I joined a life group.
And I learned that God’s love had always been there for me. I still believe that you do not need God to be a good person. I don’t want to be a good person, not on my own. I want to be in the vine, I want to weave a basket together with God and with those around me.
When I start to unravel, I run to God now.
This basket will withstand anything that life throws at me: crustaceans, tidal waves, depression, a pandemic, a friend’s cancer. God wants more for me than a flimsy paper basket. God wants to weave a basket with me and those around me so that “my joy may be complete.” God wants our lives to be fully, completely, lushly, and eternally intertwined and so do I.
Frozen Ocean Mom 