Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Preventing Grace

Home
Evangelical
The Best Kind of Love

The Best Kind of Love

Last updated on: August 12, 2015 at 7:46 am by Anne Kennedy

The Best Kind of Love 2015-08-12T07:46:43-04:00 Anne Kennedy

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

This morning, along with the tea, Matt sent a little something to roil me out of my complacent sleep, maybe as a sicko anniversary present. It looks like it’s a couple months old so probably everyone has already reacted, either in shock or in joy, although I expect more joy. Clever young lady–she doesn’t want to have any children, ever, because she’s crafted such a beautiful life for herself, and so she’s had her tubes tied, in her twenties, but best of all, she gets to write about it for Time Magazine, which makes it look shiny and happy and perfect.

You see, she starts out, “What I want is to be happy.”

And that, I think, is the spirit of the age, if I can go assigning spirits to things, like ages. This is the Age of Happiness. It’s been coming on along time, but it’s finally here, the Time to really be Happy. 2015. It’s the year when you can come right out and say what you want and do what you want and nobody can say anything about it. After all, we have the right to peruse happiness, in whatever form it takes.

And I will say, unreservedly, that if she wants to be happy, or anybody wants to be happy, the best thing in the world is not to have any children ever. This is a true statement and worthy of consideration. Happiness does not come in the bearing of children. It doesn’t. If you want to be happy, you should be by yourself, doing things you like, earning money, or taking it, or whatever. Burdening yourself with responsibility and connections to other people is not the road to happiness.

I think there is so much confusion about this, culturally. I think many many people decide to get married and have children because they think it will at the very least contribute to their already existing happiness, or create happiness where none existed. They go ahead and have the big wedding and then do the deed that leads to the baby (although I believe that that is no longer the accepted order) and all the time they have a great expectation, a great belief that the happiness will come. They make it through the first six weeks of the baby, believing in their hearts that nursing will make them happy. When it doesn’t, they quit, which is totally fine. Nursing a baby never made me happy. Keep the baby alive, I say, when at all possible. They struggle through the intensely boring first year, and then the second year. They prop their existentially unhappy selves up by focusing on the kid, keeping it alive, keeping it clean, trying to make it happy, the shadow of true knowledge that contributing to the happiness of another might bring happiness to the self. But because that knowledge is only a shadow it never comes into real time and space and after a few years they can see very plainly that all the toys and play dates and expense didn’t make the child happy, nor the spouse either. Where happiness is the end, it can never be gained, especially with children.

Here’s another telling line,

Two mothers have actually said to me, “I didn’t know what love was before having a baby. You should reconsider.” I’m happy they’re happy now but “not knowing love before kids” is one of the most acutely sad things I’ve ever heard.

These poor women, they think somehow that love has something to do with happiness. The loving of another person has been worth it to them. In fact, the difficulty and trauma of bringing a life into the world was so transformative for them that they looked back on all their previous loves and discovered them to be inadequate. Something about saying no to the self and yes to another, in this case yes to a helpless infant, brought the discovery that every other kind of love was pale in comparison. I bet these dilluded women, who have stumbled into this different kind of love, don’t always think about themselves and their own happiness. I bet sometimes they go through a whole day and don’t think about themselves at all.

I’ll skip the part where she has a momentary panic that she has made the wrong decision. Of course, of course the forty year old self never regrets anything decided by the twenty year old self. At twenty eight, or whatever, you have known all the true depths and measures of love and happiness and all your decisions should be completely irreversible. She closes her little piece with this,

I get the reasons people want kids. I do. I’m not such a heartless, selfish monster that I’m incapable of understanding the appeal of a small person who loves you unconditionally and relies on you to guide them safely through a scary world.

I want to say straight out that I don’t think anyone who chooses not to have children is a heartless, selfish monster. I do not. I think this woman is making a rational choice, and I’ve read lots of stats this week that indicate that more and more people her age are making this decision. These aren’t the monsters. The monster is Satan, for real. Satan and his spirit of this age, Happiness. Happiness is a great and terrible monster that is eating up one person after another. You can see his monstrous destruction all over these lines. Consider, she says that she’s capable of understanding the appeal of a small person who loves You and relies on You. There it is, still, the self at the center. And where the self is the center, there can never be true happiness.

There is this pesky little verse, towards the end of the bible. You have to make it all the way through the Old Testament, the gospels, and most of Paul before you come to it. It’s in a pastoral epistle, that is, a letter one pastor, Paul, was writing to a younger pastor, Timothy. To Timothy, Paul writes the most offensive words possible for this culture and this age. He writes

Yet she will be saved through childbearing-if they continue in faith and love and holiness, with self-control. – 1 Timothy 2:15

I don’t want to go into who ‘they’ are, nor the context of what and who Paul is talking about. I want to suggest that God, in his loving providence and mercy, built into the created order, from the very beginning, a way for women to be saved, rescued really, from the narrowness of their own selves. This gift isn’t given to men. They must be saved out of themselves some other way, maybe in laying down their lives in battle or something. And of course, of course, we are all saved by Jesus, by crying out for his blood to cover us before the mountains fall. The thing about giving birth, giving the gift of life to another person, delivering into the world free and clear a person who is other than you, who is not meant to be controlled or manipulated or devoured by you, is that the gift causes you yourself to die. You have to say no to yourself. This is the measures of the cross. Take up your cross, says Jesus, die to yourself. And he gives a practical way for women to do it, without even having to think too hard about it. Ever wonder how older women can work so hard and think so little about themselves? Because they were saved, they were delivered of themselves as they delivered and sustained another. And could not these women be counted as happy? Although with a true measure of anxiety and sorrow. Because when your life is bound up with another, as you die so that they can live, you want them to live, you are really sorry and sad and troubled when they fall into difficulty. You can’t be said to be really happy all the time. But you are saved, out of yourself, which is the heart of the gospel. It should be easier for a woman who has given birth to look at the cross and understand what Jesus is doing and why he’s there and why he’s willing to turn away from happiness, to die, so that another might live.

Previous Post

August 10, 2015

Monday Morning Haze

Next Post

August 13, 2015 Homeschooling from a place of Failure

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category books Catechesis of the Good Shepherd Children in Conversation culture watch Daily Devotions Demotivations with Anne faith alone for the grandparents GAFCON In conversation with children In the News Kitchen Notes Lambeth Learning Notes Life Going On Men are Human Notes from Home Pictures Reading the Bible Saturday Links Sermons Signs of the Apocalypse The Bad Word Association The Prayer of Jonah Travel Notes Uncategorized Witless Wednesdays Work and the Christian

Select a Month June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 July 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 April 2012 March 2012 February 2012 January 2012 December 2011 November 2011 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 April 2011 March 2011 February 2011 January 2011 December 2010 November 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What happened to the prophet Elijah at the end of his life?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Killed by Jezebel Buried by Elisha Died of old age Taken to heaven in a whirlwind

Books by This Author Books by Anne Kennedy

See All Titles »