Meditations in the Night

I was awakened at 2:45 a.m. by what sounded like screaming/crying coming from James' room.  I jumped out of bed and a deep sleep with the lightning speed belonging to mothers in the night and sprinted to him.  I picked him up and started to rock him, whispering everything was okay.  


Forehead?  Feels normal.  No congestion.  Ears?  He's stopped crying.  What's wrong, little boy?  Bad dreams?  


I've found that sometimes a little something to drink and sitting with mama a minute helps a child get it back together so they can go back to sleep.  I offered him juice.  No, thank you.  He ran in the living room.  "Bu, bu, bu."  Bubble Guppies?  (a newer show on Nickelodeon for preschoolers)  Well, just for a minute.  Maybe this was my mistake.  Maybe turning on the television made him think it was time to get up, but I wanted to give him a minute for whatever was bothering him to stop so we could start the bedtime routine over again.  I was trying to prevent a lot of crying by letting him stay with me a minute instead of putting him right back to bed. 


We sat on the couch for a little while, he drank some juice, and talked in a loud voice.  Then I picked him up to carry him to bed about 3:20.  He fought and cried and carried on when I lay him down.  He got quiet at 3:30 but not for long.  He continued in a cycle of crying every few minutes until 4:17, when I decided I would comfort him one more time and put him right back in bed.  KJ is shaking his head at this, but a mother's heart is hard to hold back, especially at 4:30 in the morning and after listening to her baby cry in the dark of his bedroom for an hour.  I thought that maybe if I could rock him and let him calm down enough to go to sleep it would be easier for him.  I knew he would still cry some, but I was hoping it wouldn't be as much.  


I rocked him, and he sat still for a little while.  Then he tried to wiggle out of my arms.  "NO, James."  Okay, snuggle in, and I finally felt his body relax, his little hand pat me, and the drool start dripping down my arm.  As I rocked I thought about how I wanted to write down all my memories of life with Ella in Louisville before they were lost forever.  The extreme tiredness of sleeping 4 hours and then being awake for 2 hours in the middle of the night started to hit me, and I remembered the first year with Ella and with James.  I thought about the worst nights ever that I had with James, the desperation, the complete and utter exhaustion, having to face the day not knowing if I'd get a nap or not.  One of his worst nights was the night before my brother-in-law's wedding.  Up all night.  Then a full day of wedding festivities.  


I remembered what it felt like to start the day with nothing to give, but knowing I had to give anyway and having no idea how I would do it.  I remembered the helpless tears and the prayers for rest that it seemed like no one heard.  


And I thought about the friends I have who might one day walk through this season and wondered, What could I say that would be an encouragement?  What good came out of these experiences in my life?  What lessons did I learn that made me more like Christ and that I'm better for having learned?  Honestly, I drew a blank for the span of several rocks.  All I could think about was how absolutely hard it was.  


At this point, it was 4:42, and I lay James back in his crib.  He started screaming again.  I left the room and closed the door and resigned myself to the couch.  I figured I would doze a little bit.  I don't like to go into oblivion in my bedroom, not knowing when he stops crying.  He cried off and on for another hour, and it was then I was able to think of some good that came out of my experiences.

1. I learned that I am not in control of my day.  I  like to plan out the day, to be productive.  I don't like to lay around, wasting time, waiting for a chance to take a nap. Sometimes it seemed like the worst nights came at the worst possible times, the night before a family wedding for instance, when I wanted to be at my best.
2. It made me depend on the Lord.  Instead of my being "in control" and enjoying a day, making it all about me, complete exhaustion and the emotional frailty that comes with it made me have to walk in complete dependence on the Spirit, praying with every breath and having no idea how the Lord could possibly get me through a whole day without me falling apart.  I didn't know where the resources would come from but had to have faith and trust that they would come because I knew I was empty.
3. I learned perseverance.  I suppose we would never learn how to keep walking during hard times if we never had hard times.  This was especially true when James was a baby, and I had Ella at home.  Ella didn't nap for long after James was born, so on the worst days, I had her awake all day and needing her mother, too.  I couldn't snap, cry, speak sharply, or lose my cool.  I had to keep it together for her.  
4. I learned "to keep a quiet heart," as Elisabeth Elliot says.  When Ella was a baby, I would become so stressed about things not going according to plan.  Our bane with her was Saturday nights, the one night of the week when we needed to sleep and stay on schedule, but every Saturday night she would be up several times, leaving me with the dilemma of waking her to go to church and facing the daunting task of gathering all of the baby necessities while readying her and myself for the long morning away from home.  But, as EE also writes, I learned to "do the next thing."  I learned to live in the moment, take a quiet breath and just do the next thing, to stop worrying about all the unknowns.  And you know what I've noticed, I don't live every moment in dependence on God's grace when I feel good and in control of myself.  When I am weak, I start looking for His grace and strength, and I start finding it.  

So, there's my list, and I don't think it's such a bad one.  And when my friends who haven't made this journey begin it, I'll know their pain.  Sleeplessness is its own form of suffering.  It even made Paul's list!  We put no stumbling block in anyone’s path, so that our ministry will not be discredited. ⁴ Rather, as servants of God we commend ourselves in every way: in great endurance; in troubles, hardships and distresses; ⁵ in beatings, imprisonments and riots; in hard work, sleepless nights and hunger; ⁶in purity, understanding, patience and kindness; in the Holy Spirit and in sincere love...

That always encouraged me so much.  Surely it wasn't as bad as beatings, but sleepless nights for 7 months straight are their own kind of suffering.  I'm glad the Apostle Paul agreed.

I suppose James finally fell asleep around 5:45 as did I on the couch, where I was awakened by Ella around 7:00 and had to get up to get her dressed and her lunch packed.  James is still sleeping (of course).  We'll see what the rest of the day holds.  Whatever it is, I'm going to try to live up to my blog's name and be content about it, which reminds me about what Paul said, "I am well content in weaknesses...".  Since God's grace was sufficient for him, he was well content in the weaknesses instead of grumbling about them.  Well, then.  I guess I'll have a happy day after all.