Self-Fulfilling Prophecy

Some things in life can be so confusing. We can do things for reasons that we don’t understand ourselves, and if we ever realize why we made choices we made, it has already affected so many subsequent decisions, that it’s impossible to undo.

Recently I realized something that I had been struggling with for more than half a year. I had felt a complete lack of connection to the baby I had been carrying. I couldn’t picture myself with her during my pregnancy, or picture my life with her. I began to wonder if it was because I wasn’t going to be there to see her grow up. I had had dreams about her when I was younger, and then I realized that I had never seen myself in those dreams with her.

Finally I realized that I didn’t feel that I deserved her. I felt so much guilt for my divorce and remarriage and for moving my sons a thousand miles from their father and extended family , that I felt that God would never bless me again in any way. When I found out I was pregnant, I was shocked. I finally realized that I was terrified that if I bonded with this child, or accepted this blessing that I did not deserve, that she would be taken away from me, or I would be taken away from her. So I refused to acknowledge my pregnancy, or enjoy my daughter. I kept at a safe emotional distance. Now after almost a year of doing this, I’m still struggling to bond with her.

Finally I realized something. Whether or not I “deserve” to have a daughter, whether or not my sins in life are “forgivable”, whether or not I should be “blessed” or “cursed” is really irrelevant. Because it’s not about me.

The real question is, what did my daughter do to deserve to have a detached mother? Did my daughter do something to not deserve the best mother I can be to her? Maybe it’s time to move on from overanalyzing my life and move on to providing for hers.

Through my feelings that I did not deserve to be blessed with another child, I was acting in ways that effectively took away any blessing I would have felt at the birth of my child. If I had continued in this way throughout my daughters’ childhood, I would have adversely affected our relationship and possibly through my own actions changed the blessing literally into a curse. It was a self-fulfilling prophecy.