But before Sugie’s funeral plans had even been finalized, my mom received a call from a relative on my dad’s side of the family in Tennessee, where my other grandfather was also battling cancer. I sat in a plush recliner across the living room as she listened. A few moments later, she mouthed two words in my direction that caused the room to dim and sway: “He died.” A new wave of shock hit me as I tried to take in this unbelievable news—both of my grandfathers dying one day apart, my father just months from death himself. In that moment it honestly felt like anyone I loved could be next, like someone was out to get us. I left the room so I wouldn’t have to hear Mom tell Dad his father had died. I couldn’t handle watching his shoulders sink any lower.
A typical introvert with a lot to process, I turned to my journal:
The world needs more men in it like the man my father is. Currently, I can say how my father “is,” but only for another month or so, before I begin to talk about the type of man my father “was.” Isn’t it strange how death graduates you from one grammatical tense to another? I only wish I could spend my evenings complaining about my boss, instead of discussing Dad’s condition and its fast-paced deterioration with my husband. Oh, for normal life!
Since when did “normal” consist of looking at caskets on the internet to save money, or discussing how Dad managed to keep down three bites of baked potato? But this is daily life now. Our ordinary. It isn’t the evening news I am watching, thinking of those poor people who have been through so much. This is me, my life, my father . . . People are looking at our family, thinking, “Those poor people have been through so much.” We are on the other side of their sympathy—how did we get here?
Not long after I wrote those words, the time came to say goodbye to my father, the only other introvert in my immediate family. His childhood had been laden with difficulties, yet God had transformed him into a man who did his best for our family. The one who had watched Little House on the Prairie and Anne of Green Gables with me countless times, who had helped me study for countless tests, who had affirmed in countless moments that I was good enough. During one of our final conversations, I sat on the edge of his hospice bed while he faded in and out of consciousness. Suddenly, I heard his voice: “I keep drifting off to sleep . . . then you move a little and it wakes me up.”
I started to apologize, thinking my fidgeting had frustrated him. But he went on: “Then I open my eyes and see you sitting there, looking like a beautiful angel.”
On June 12, two months after my grandfathers died, Dad passed away. After the funeral we sat in Mom’s living room with the television on, a plethora of Father’s Day commercials playing. I remember how hollow it felt, knowing I was now fatherless. There was no need to rush to the store for a last-minute present.
As a twenty-five-year-old, I was still figuring out who I was as an adult, a woman, and a wife. This being my first experience with grief, I tried to deal with the hurt as best I could. It pained Steve to see me upset when he couldn’t fix it, and I didn’t know how to talk about my feelings in a healthy and vulnerable way. We joined a small group Bible study with a few other couples that summer, and I never even mentioned to anyone that my father had just passed away. With that subconscious choice, I did what introverts tend to do—I turned my pain inward. By the time Steve and I saw smoke rising over the Pentagon and the Twin Towers collapsing on television, it felt as though the end of the world had truly come.
DEALING WITH THE TOUGH STUFF OF LIFE INTROVERT-STYLE
Pelf City—it’s an okay spot to visit, but you wouldn’t want to live there.
Mom has reminded me of this more times than I can count. Pelf City is code for Self Pity, our destination when life comes out of nowhere and kicks us in the teeth. It’s a bad day, or week, or month, or year. We call each other and cry and allow all the feelings: It’s not fair, why does he or she keep doing this, how are we going to get through it? But the rule is simple: You can make a rest stop in Pelf City, but you can’t buy property and break ground on new construction. You acknowledge the hard, share it with someone you trust, then slip on your big girl pants and continue the journey.
I learned the importance of this principle the hard way as an introverted mother. For more than seven years, one of my children routinely struggled with anger. Daily rages were our reality, long past the terrible twos. I’m sure you can imagine, or perhaps know all too well yourself, how difficult it is for an introvert to recharge with screams and constant conflict in the background. Yet for the longest time, I didn’t open up about what we were going through. Because my child directed most of the anger toward me, I felt like it was my problem, my fault. I kept it inside or tried to make light of it. I thought telling the truth about the tough stuff equaled “being negative” or complaining, and that in order to be a positive person and a hardworking mom, I had to ignore those feelings or at least put a spin on them. Guess what? That didn’t work; it only made life harder.
A turning point came when one day, while my child was in the middle of a tantrum, I wrote to a handful of friends:
“My child has been screaming for over an hour, and I am so sad. I need you guys to know just because I don’t want to feel like it’s this dark secret I’m keeping, but also because I need someone to tell me that it’s not all my fault. I know I can trust you and I would really value your prayers.”
Typing those words was an absolute relief, and so were the kind, caring responses that arrived minutes later, letting me know I wasn’t alone, offering prayers, and simply acknowledging how hard it sounded.
Truthfully verbalizing our reality is the first step in healing our hurts. Not only that, but we desperately need this kind of vulnerability in our world. After all, we don’t often scroll through social media to find a photo of someone’s shrieking child, do we? I get this. We use our lenses to capture beauty. But that can also lead us to think we’re the only ones dealing with anything less than beautiful. When we courageously expose our personal darkness, it’s impossible for it to remain shadowed and overcast. Light transforms everything, and loads are always easier to carry when distributed between two sets of shoulders.
Let’s turn to the Psalms for a blueprint of how to do this. Consider Psalms 42; 56; 57; 142; 143, and many others. We can see a pattern: The writers express the reality of their current paths. They don’t shy away from pain and suffering:
My enemies have set a trap for me. I am weary from distress. (Psalm 57:6 NLT)
I cry out to the LORD; I plead for the LORD’S mercy. I pour out my complaints before him and tell him all my troubles. When I am overwhelmed, you alone know the way I should turn. (Psalm 142:1–3 NLT)
Yet the writers of the Psalms don’t set up camp in Pelf City, either. After a few honest verses, they turn their attention from the problem back to God’s faithfulness. They recall the times he helped them in the past. And they remind themselves that God will be there this time, too:
Why am I discouraged? Why is my heart so sad? I will put my hope in God! I will praise him again—my Savior and my God! Now I am deeply discouraged, but I will remember you . . . (Psalm 42:5–6 NLT)
You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. My enemies will retreat when I call to you for help. This I know: God is on my side! I praise God for what he has promised; yes, I praise the LORD for what he has promised. (Psalm 56:8–10 NLT)
We can cling to this pattern when we need to deal with life’s disappointments in a way that keeps us moving forward instead of in a way that keeps us feeling stuck. It’s vital that we do so, because introverts who don’t fully deal with heartache will find it rising to the surface repeatedly, trying to get our attention. Our bodies, minds, and spirits won’t let us forget what’s hidden. It may show up as chronic pain, an eating disorder, a compromised immune system, an angry outburst, or a host of other unhealthy symptoms.
To deal with periods of sadness or sorrow, Certified Life Coach and G
rief Recovery Specialist Kathryn Van Auken recommends that introverts know and accept their limits, make self-care and self-compassion a top priority, and find a group (yes, an online group counts!) that allows them to share their own tough truths in an honest, safe space.1 Loss and heartache drain any personality type, but understanding their impact on us as introverts means we can show ourselves extra kindness, setting a beautiful example for our kids—introverted or otherwise—of how to deal with hardship in their own lives.
KEEPING OUT THE SHADOWS: LESSONS FROM L. M. MONTGOMERY
The road of literature is at first a very slow one, but I have made a good deal of progress since this time last year and I mean to work patiently on until I win—as I believe I shall, sooner or later—recognition and success.
L. M. MONTGOMERY, APRIL 9, 1897 (AGE 22)
Why yes, Maud, yes. Just a tad bit of recognition and success might be heading your way. One day a few years from now, you’ll search through your idea notebook and come across a faded entry: Elderly couple apply to orphan asylum for a boy. By mistake a girl is sent them. She will grow in your mind, this mischievous orphan, until you can’t bear to waste her on the Sunday school newspaper story you’d originally planned. Instead you’ll write your first book, bringing to life a character who will go on to bring life and hope to millions. Except you won’t know it yet. When the book is finished, you’ll seal your heart in a large envelope and send it to four publishers, all of whom will reject your redheaded heroine. Bruised by failure, you’ll pack Anne of Green Gables away in the bottom of an old hat box, then stumble upon her later, dust her off, decide to try one more time. And that will change everything.
I wrote it for love, not money—but very often such books are the most successful—just as everything in life that is born of true love is better than something constructed for mercenary ends.
AUGUST 16, 1907 (AGE 32)
Lucy Maud Montgomery (1874–1942; known as “Maud” to friends and family) was born on November 30, 1874, into a life marked by extreme opposites: depths of despair on one hand and highs of fame on the other. She never knew her mother, who died before Maud turned two. Her father, overcome by grief, soon left Maud in the care of her strict maternal grandparents, with whom she spent her childhood and her first years as an adult. Maud and her legendary Anne with an “e” had a lot in common: both lost parents at a young age, struggled with loneliness and felt misunderstood, had writing ambitions, lived in a world of vivid imagination, and adored their home on Prince Edward Island, Canada. Because Maud journaled prolifically, from age fourteen until her death at sixty-seven, modern-day readers have the chance to glimpse her inner world, which helps us understand her as both an introverted woman and, later, a mother.
It seems that Anne is a big success. One of the reviews says that “the book radiates happiness and optimism.” When I think of the conditions of worry and gloom and care under which it was written I wonder at this. Thank God, I can keep the shadows of my life out of my work. I would not wish to darken any other life—I want instead to be a messenger of optimism and sunshine.
OCTOBER 15, 1908 (AGE 33)
Perhaps I’ve always been drawn to Maud because it seems likely we share the same personality type—INFJ on the Myers-Briggs type indicator. One of the rarest types, the INFJ is often considered “The Advocate,” someone “quiet and mystical, yet a very inspiring and tireless idealist.”2 Creative introverts who follow through with plans and ideas, we also tend to be sensitive, extremely private, and perfectionistic—qualities that lead to burnout when we’re not careful.
Maud married a minister, Ewan Macdonald, at the age of thirty-six. She longed to have children, and soon after her marriage, found she was pregnant. She went on to raise two sons, Chester and Stuart. As a mother, Maud hoped to give her two boys the support she herself had lacked:
Oh, my darling little son, you make up for everything I have suffered and missed in life. Everything led to you—and therefore I feel that all has been for the best.
SEPTEMBER 22, 1912 (AGE 37, AFTER HAVING HER FIRST CHILD)
But like us, Maud struggled with her adjustment to introverted motherhood. At times she expressed frustration with certain aspects of her new role. This included a lack of time to read and write, her two great passions, and the constant pressure to make progress on another book when interruptions came so regularly:
I often think wistfully of the quiet hours by my old window “down home,” where I thought and wrote “without haste and without rest.” But those days are gone and cannot return as long as wee Chester is a small make-trouble. I do not wish them back—but I would like some undisturbed hours for writing.
MAY 21, 1913 (AGE 38)
The second half of Maud’s life brought more loss her way, including the mental illness of her husband, which grew worse over time and which she fearfully attempted to conceal; the devastating loss of her second baby at birth; the early death of her dearest friend and trusted confidante; the struggle to keep developing as an author in a publishing world dominated by men; and the stress of managing her duties as a minister’s wife. As the years became more challenging and her support system dwindled, Maud relied even more on her journal as a safe place to pour out her burdens. But the shadows we find in them only tell part of her story.
In a life impacted deeply by heartache, great beauty also emerged. Once, as a young mother, Maud composed a list of her favorite things: seasons, authors, trees, and so on. She included her deepest dream, to “write a book that will live.” She didn’t believe this dream could come true, yet live her books have. Maud made her beloved Island famous, passing its stunning treasures on to scores of readers and visitors. And that dramatic redhead of hers? She’s gone on to sell over fifty million copies, placing Anne of Green Gables in the list of the top 25 best-selling books of all time, redeeming tragedy and making Maud the messenger of optimism she always longed to become.3
INTROVERTED MOM TAKEAWAYS FROM L. M. MONTGOMERY’S LIFE
Use your journal.
Maud poured both the good and the bad into the pages of her journal. It doesn’t matter if it’s loose paper, a beautifully bound book, or a digital document—clearing the thoughts out of our head, particularly in difficult times, can be powerfully helpful for introverts. I like to write down my positive thoughts and gratitude to keep long-term, but after I use my digital journal for releasing negativity, I prefer to erase it. I find it beneficial to get dark thoughts out of my head, but it’s not helpful for me to hold on to them forever.
But go beyond your journal, too.
When we become isolated, as Maud did during certain periods of her life, we more easily find ourselves stuck in unhealthy patterns of negative thinking, self-pity, and the false belief that we must carry all our burdens alone. But when we share openly and vulnerably with someone we trust, our problems shrink back into their proper perspective as we allow others to help and support us.
Only God determines our legacy.
The public adored Maud’s work, but a few professional critics and other authors openly spoke out against it. Yet here we are, more than a hundred years later, and look whose books are still being read! Each of us has significance in God’s eyes, freeing us from the need to strive, perform, or compare. When we accept what is and isn’t within our control, we can focus on what matters most—obedience to his calling today.
The healing power of nature.
If you’ve read any of her books, you already know how much nature meant to Maud. She brought her treasured homeland to life so vividly that thousands still flock there each year, seeking out the real Lover’s Lane, Haunted Wood, and the red soil of PEI. I’ve seen them myself, and they are as stunning as she describes. Wherever we live, let’s seek out the comfort, connection, and restoration nature provides.
God redeems pain.
Part of the reason the world continues to love Anne is because even though she has endured great hardship, she still manages to find beauty in her world. T
hrough the novel’s overwhelming success and longevity, we also see how God redeemed Maud’s own brokenness, transforming it into a gift that continues to help new generations. We can trust him to do the same with the heartache and loss in our own lives.
WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT MAUD? CHECK OUT:
•Her most popular / well-known piece: Anne of Green Gables (published in 1908, when she was thirty-four)
•One of her personal favorites: The Story Girl (published in 1911, when she was thirty-seven)
•Something a little different: The Blythes Are Quoted (this manuscript turned up at her publisher’s office on the day Maud died, but was never published in its entirety until 2009)
•This work about her: Lucy Maud Montgomery: The Gift of Wings by Mary Henley Rubio
REFLECTIONS FOR INTROVERTED MOMS
Grace for the Introverted Mom
Good morning, introverted mama.
I see you there: forehead creased, shoulders slumped, tears on cheeks.
This mothering gig isn’t easy, but where did you get the idea that the whole thing is your responsibility? That their entire future depends solely on your ability to get it right?
You won’t get it right and you can’t do it all, but here’s the thing:
You were never called to. That’s why there is grace.
Grace for when the baby is on the way.
Grace for when the baby’s born—when spirits are high and sleep is low.
Grace, even, for when the baby dies and your world shatters, leaving you broken, desperate, and wondering how you’ll ever grasp normal again.
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