There’s just no telling how far you’ll go
“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
“Monanana” B repeats, as he rolls over on his pillow, legs positioned in frog pose, and thumb finding his mouth.
As I tuck the blankets around him, I recall the day he was born. How I laid in the OR expectantly, “Innocent Warrior” playing on loop in my head (for the record, it beats “Running Up That Hill”, the eerie tune playing in my head the night N was delivered via emergency c/s). Tonight, he is prompting me to sing his lullaby of choice: Moana’s “How Far I’ll Go”. For a half Danish boy, the Polynesian love sure is rooted deeply in his soul.
Barbados with N, May 2023.
An aspect to my identity has, and always will be, a love for all things Disney and the magic it brings. Skeptics, please step aside. As a Christian mom, I am finding (and here to share) that Disney leads with an abundance of Christian-themed examples for parenting.
As a young girl, my favorite Disney princess was Belle. In fact, Beauty and the Beast was my first crash course to the English language. I related deeply to Belle’s love of reading and her passion for getting lost in a good book.
Yet, unlike Belle, I have surprised myself with how little I have cared to devour parenting books. I thought I’d be full force studying, note-taking, and spreadsheeting-making (ok, yes, there were a couple of Excel baby logs and “baby sleep trackers”, a futile attempt to graph and spot trends when homegirl literally never slept). I enjoy reading parenting books for the shared experiences of others in the trenches; not for the tips or answers.
In fact, when we were expecting N, we read only one parenting book: “What to Expect”. That’s right, in 2022 we chose to read the likely outdated 1990s canonical parenting book. To us, a couple of 80s/90s expecting kids, “What to Expect” subconsciously represented the rite of passage into parenting. It is the unofficial Bible of pregnancy; the O.G. Parenting 101. And yet, neither among the 656 pages (“What to Expect When You’re Expecting) nor the subsequent 704 pages (“What to Expect the First Year”) was a key topic even broached for me: how the h-e-ck do I start feeling like myself again after this little baby has imploded my sense of who I am?
Like us, Moana is figuring out who she was meant to be. Moana is the young daughter of Chief Tui, the leader of the island, Motonui. As heir to the role, her family and village has high and well-established expectations of Moana. However, Moana feels a tug elsewhere, a yearning in her heart for a purpose beyond her island. She is a wayfinder, a sacred responsibility where she leverages a deep spiritual connection to the ocean to navigate the seas.
Chief Tui assures Moana: "You’ll be okay. In time you’ll learn just as I did. You must find happiness right where you are.” His mother, Moana’s Gramma Tala, the self-proclaimed “village crazy lady” sings a different tune: “And if when that voice starts to whisper to follow the farthest star... Moana, that voice inside is who you are.” Tala contrasts Tui’s sense duty with the essence of discovering who we were created to be. When Chief Tui urges Moana to follow her destined path, Tala encourages Moana to explore the notion of individual destiny. Chief Tui instructs Moana “never go beyond the reef”, confining his daughter both literally and figuratively, as Moana’s heart yearns for her true purpose, a calling left to be discovered somewhere beyond the deepest waves.
We hear the Chief Tui / Gramma Tala tug of voices in our lives too. The world, like Chief Tui, will tell us our duties, encourages us in our apparent roles and logically ascertains some sort of boundary around our abilities. The Holy Spirit, like Gramma Tala, is that voice inside our hearts, telling us that we were made to be so much more.
I am convicted that this is true and here is why: God himself was not confined to just one role. He exists in a trinity: Father, Son, Holy Spirit. He is a Creator. He is a Shepherd. A Judge. A King. A Healer. God is everything.
And guess what? We were made in His image. Just like God, we were designed to take on many roles and responsibilities. Motherhood is just one of these! Do you want to find yourself again as a mom? Your instruction isn’t found through parenting books – it’s found through Jesus. For he “answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” If you want to find your way, you need to go through Jesus. He is the way and He is the only way.