Yesterday, The Sis and The Niece came over. The Niece is in that Pull-Ups stage of development, wherein the undergarment reflects both optimism (we will accomplish this potty-training thing!) and reality (yep, that’s a turd in her pants). The toddler’s alert to said pant-package–“I poopy”–often arrives a beat too late, and when The Sis walked back into the room after retrieving a fresh Pull-Up, The Niece had gotten ahold of a piece of fake dog crap we had lying around. (I could tell you the story of how that crap came to reside in our home, but let’s just allow it to be a kind of summary of the way we approach life.) The Niece held out her poop-laden hand toward The Sis, and there was the sharp intake of air that accompanies total shock (and, in this case, misunderstanding). Then The Sis and I burst into laughter as our children looked at us as if we were insane. Not for the last time, I’m sure.

We talked later about how much more fun things are now with these creatures we’ve spawned, how the investments of time and sleeplessness and sanity we made in those first few months have reaped their reward in our children’s smiles and laughter and learning. I am an official fan of the toddler stage, with its speed-crawling and hands-free standing and glimpses of personality. And I love that, having come from a home brimming with estrogen, I am the lone double Xer in between two XYs. It’s like being in New York again, where people say what they mean and loud noises abound.

But a funny thing happened on the way out of the city and into domesticity: that funny fear thing that followed me around all my life followed me into the suburbs, now taking on new shapes and targets. No, I really don’t have the energy to worry about getting toilet paper on my shoe or accidentally farting in public anymore; but those self-stationed concerns are laughable compared with the weight of two lives tied to mine. I used to rush out of work to get to the gym; now I’m speeding to a building full of babies so that I can pluck mine out of the backstory of danger I’ve created in my mind on the ten-minute drive. There is a very real possibility that, left to my own devices, I could drive myself into complete paralysis just by thinking my way there. And if everyone’s well-being really depended on me as much as I act like it does, we would all be screwed.

But I’m not left to my own devices. I just have a hard time letting go of them.

Prayer, along with coffee in the morning, wine in the evening, and Salt n Pepa in the car, is what works for me. In the stillness that accompanies it (because God will show up anywhere, but I get the feeling he doesn’t like being multitasked), prayer reveals that my attempts at providing my own light for the road ahead don’t do anything to change the fact that it will not be illuminated according to my schedule. We’re all fumbling around in the dark, holding up battery-dead flashlights and crying out that we know the way. And oh, how we cry out: on message boards, in comment sections, in gossip and snide remarks, in unsolicited advice. Which is what’s so funny, because we assume that OUR way is THE way when we can’t really even see five feet ahead. Isn’t it possible that we’re each allowed our own path?

My personal path leads me through prayers that remind me of truth: that these bodies we have are just shells wasting away; that it’s the soul within that matters, that sticks, that evil and time and brokenness can’t destroy. And yet we spend so much time polishing those shells, and so little on the eternal part. There is a way to live our choices without looking down our noses at everyone else’s, without muttering and/or yelling in defensiveness and insecurity. I remember a conversation I had with someone while I was pregnant, and she asked what my plan was for going back to work. She cited a friend of hers, who had decided to stay home with her new baby because “she just couldn’t imagine letting anyone else take care of him.” It was the first arrow I endured in the Mommy Wars, and the day I began to feel the temptation to assemble armor and weapons of my own. Naturally, I regularly give in to the self-doubt that increases a thousand-fold once a human being is pulled from your gut or adopted into your heart. But the other day, I read an email that The Kid’s physical therapist sent to his pediatrician in which she described his progress. At one point, she wrote, “Mom, who is a pediatric dentist, feels…” and went on, but my eyes stuck to that part between the commas. I used to equate my self-worth with my accomplishments. But now, as TK has endured a helmet, a neck collar, a surgery, and continuing physical therapy, I think about how my head and neck training has allowed me to have a shorthand conversation–and perhaps a bit of deeper involvement and more authoritative voice–regarding his treatment. And far from being something to brag about or hang my hat upon, this background of mine–this part of my story–is a humbling gift from a God kind enough to know that this particular mom, this particular girl, feels so much better when she has a voice. On a blog or in a PT room. And that, if that’s the only thing my years of studying and practicing afford me, it is so much more than enough. And so much more than he had to give.

It’s my story, the same way your story is yours. If they overlap, great. But one’s not better than the other. Or if you’d rather hear it in the slightly defensive but infinitely poetic words of Salt n Pepa:

So, the moral of this story is, who are you to judge?

There’s only one true judge and that’s God

So chill, and let my Father do his job.