Confession: Having kids did not fix me. I was not somehow more whole, less botched-up, or more certain just because I had a kid. I had thought becoming a mother would be the magic solution; provide me with the missing piece. The hole in my life, in my heart, would finally be filled. I thought having a baby would result in all the stars aligning and my world finally making sense. I wouldn’t be restless anymore. I would feel satisfied, happy, and full of purpose. I put all my eggs into that basket; I trusted the arrival of a baby and the title of mother to do those things and more.

But what I found out was that, instead of it fixing me, I was still me, with all my holes and problems and questions—only now I was also exhausted and had a lot more laundry to do.

I was in my early twenties with a newborn baby, a husband, and a mortgage.

It wasn’t until then that the words “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you can live together whole and healed” (James 5:16) snapped into place in my heart. I made my first confession, waiting for a table at a burger joint. I confessed then to my friend, sitting on the stool beside me, that having a baby had not fixed me or my life. In fact, it had had quite the opposite effect.

I had spent several years up to that point obnoxiously and arrogantly forcing my opinions of child-bearing and rearing on others, including those in my church, whose children’s ministry I ran. Because I believed that being a mother was the most noble of callings, I could not imagine that it wouldn’t bandage and heal all the parts of me that felt fractured, unraveled, and wrong.

In those first few days at home with my sweet newborn boy, I would sit on the couch and stare at him in his bouncy seat, stunned at how I felt: exactly the same on the inside. Motherhood had failed to deliver wholeness to my heart in one swift move. It had delivered another layer of love, yes, I loved my son with my whole heart, but underneath there I was still: me, the same girl I had always been.

That blunt statement to a friend held perhaps the first most honest, humbling words I had said in my adult life up to that point. I didn’t say them to gain her sympathy. I said them because it was the confession of my heart. It was pure truth, and I was so sleep-deprived that pure, raw, unflattering truth was all I had to offer.

In that moment I confessed that my formula for happiness had not worked. And in that confession came forgiveness and healing. Forgiveness for myself, forgiveness from my self-righteous attitudes and words. Forgiveness for stubbornly putting my hope in something of earth instead of something of heaven.

Healing also came in the form of my friend’s reaction, this friend whose own story included struggles with infertility issues, thanking me for my honest confession. It helped her know that even if she were to have a child someday, it would not fix her. It wasn’t the miracle formula to fixing all the broken parts of her life either. She was released from the bondage that comes from chasing that which you are the most convinced will solve your problems and bind your wounds.

In that moment, through the spilling out of those words, I begin to understand how bringing out into the light the broken places and the failures and humble moments of raw truth should not diminish us in each other’s eyes, not if we are walking in Christ’s love. Instead, it should bring a sense of “Oh, you too? I thought I was the only one!”

Excerpted from "A Homemade Year:The Blessings of Cooking, Crafting, and Coming Together" by Jerusalem Jackson Greer. Used with permission of Paraclete Press.

For the month of May, Little Rock Family invited Arkansas mom bloggers to share their Mother's Day memories, stories and lessons. Read more about Jerusalem and her new book at her blog, JollyGoodeGal.com.