Stripped Away

By Maddi Winterbottom

Just when you feel the most put-together, you find that what you really need is a little less pride. 

Last year I returned home from a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I lived in a different state for 18 months to dedicate myself to teaching the Gospel, and to (hopefully) come back with a renewed testimony and outlook on life. That’s the attitude I had when I came home; I felt that I had peaked and reached my best self, and that for the rest of my life, this would be what I would want to live up to. However, this perspective dramatically changed my first semester back to school. It began in my Humanities class, where we read pieces of St. Augustine of Hippo’s book, Confessions.

A Look at Mercy

Being my first semester back in college, I took all of my readings the same way—to learn what I needed for the class, and to move on. But as I read from St. Augustine, his words left a profound impression on me. The way St. Augustine spoke to me, recounting his love for the Lord, and his relationship with the Lord, struck me. Still adjusting from being surrounded in a spiritually sensitive atmosphere, these ideas struck me with a sense of familiarity—almost like déjà vu.


Yet suffer me to speak unto Thy mercy, me, dust and ashes. Yet suffer me to speak, since I speak to Thy mercy, and not to scornful man. Thou too, perhaps, despisest me, yet wilt Thou return and have compassion upon me.

Perhaps it was the way the words pierced to my soul, referring again and again to mercy?

Was it that I had, just as St. Augustine, come to feel the surreal warmth that comes from mercy? Was it that the idea tugged at me repeatedly as he echoed the word, and then shifts to speaking of comfort? Or maybe it was how the ideas seemed to intertwined throughout this work, and captivated me. As I read on, it felt like the Saint was speaking with God as he would a friend, and I again craved that sense of familiarity.

For what would I say, O Lord my God, but that I know not whence I came into this dying life (shall I call it?) or living death. Then immediately did the comforts of Thy compassion take me up, as I heard (for I remember it not) from the parents of my flesh, out of whose substance Thou didst sometime fashion me. Thus there received me the comforts of woman's milk. 

A Mother's Milk

Maybe instead it was the imagery that captivated me, and pulled me away from mercy, or even comfort, and brought me to center on life instead. His writing was raw, and humble.

For neither my mother nor my nurses stored their own breasts for me; but Thou didst bestow the food of my infancy through them, according to Thine ordinance, whereby Thou distributest Thy riches through the hidden springs of all things. Thou also gavest me to desire no more than Thou gavest; and to my nurses willingly to give me what Thou gavest them. For they, with a heaven-taught affection, willingly gave me what they abounded with from Thee. For this my good from them, was good for them. Nor, indeed, from them was it, but through them; for from Thee, O God, are all good things, and from my God is all my health. This I since learned, Thou, through these Thy gifts, within me and without, proclaiming Thyself unto me. For then I knew but to suck; to repose in what pleased, and cry at what offended my flesh; nothing more.

For what St. Augustine may have intended to draw upon experiences of mercy, and compassion, instead brought me to experiences of love, of nourishment, and life-giving. The depiction of a mother giving suck struck me so deeply for one to have never bore children. But yet the imagery ingrained into me nonetheless. It took shape in me, and I could feel the immense love that came from the words, “Thou also gave me to desire no more than Thou gavest.” 

This idea of self-sufficiency being born in the imagery of dependency as a mother gives suck to a child—could this be what captivated me? It caused me to reflect back on my relationship with my mother, and the opportunities she gave me to grow and to learn as she was earning her degree. Instead of a mother who would make me snacks and do my laundry, she encouraged me to learn to cook for myself, and help my sisters with their laundry. I related with this act of love that resembled teaching a young bird to fly, and to appreciate the opportunity to learn so early, rather than wishing for more time in the nest. 

But here, as I read these words, a new light came again. Something that was trying to emerge as I read through these passages, here, at the words “For then I knew but to suck; to repose in what pleased, and cry at what offended my flesh; nothing more.”

A Glimpse of Humility

The imagery here is of a child, and instead of life, the Saint is referring to our most vulnerable state in humanity. A state of complete dependency, where we have little to offer or claim except that that had been given to us. Here I realized, that St. Augustine of Hippo had more humility in these passages than I had originally anticipated, and it was made evident to me in the use of his imagery. The passages before left me wanting, craving to understand, but here, at the culminating point of description, creating a familiar and vivid scene, this is where I began to understand.

It was more than likely the mixing of themes with such fluidity that caused me such internal reflection at this point in his book. St. Augustine wrote with such clarity, that his numerous themes didn’t trip up one another, but instead built upon themselves and embedded their meaning well beyond the page, and into the very memories of my mind. The movement of these themes created my own journey- an intimate relationship where now, the Saint of Hippo and I seemed to share experiences as one would during a lunch break with friends, catching up on a weekend’s events.

Afterwards I began to smile; first in sleep, then waking: for so it was told me of myself, and I believed it; for we see the like in other infants, though of myself I remember it not. Thus, little by little, I became conscious where I was; and to have a wish to express my wishes to those who could content them, and I could not; for the wishes were within me, and they without; nor could they by any sense of theirs enter within my spirit.

As St. Augustine and I continued to converse, his smile seeped into me. I realized that I, too, had become conscious of where. I had come home a missionary who thought I had learned the most important lessons already. I felt that I had already become the daughter that God had anticipated me to be. But yet, as I mosied my way through the writing of Confessions, I learned that I was missing perhaps the most important lesson. There was a pride in me that needed stripping. What I needed instead, was to expose myself to new levels of rawness, of humility, and begin my life anew with an open-mind. 

Picture Credit:
First Picture: Lost Petals is a photograph by Joana Kruse which was uploaded on February 26th, 2013.

Second Picture: Mommy and Me Milk Bath is a photograph from Beauty and Lifestyle Mommy by Fayth Eloise uploaded Jan 20th, 2020