It was 9:30am, and E had woken up at 5:30am after keeping us up for most of the night. For some reason I had woken up that morning with a terrible throbbing pain in my right eye. Anytime I blinked, it felt like there were grains of sand circling my retina. RBH was at his office, and I had been trying to get a very tired E to sleep for a long time. She does this thing where she groans when she knows she is close to sleeping--almost like she thinks if she keeps talking then she can't fall asleep. So here we are: she keeps groaning and flailing her limbs around and fighting me and I am getting super super frustrated. JUST SLEEP. You are so tired, just let go. I am even here rocking you and holding you and giving you everything you need. Just let yourself sleep. Please. You will feel better. I promise you will be happy again.
I put her down in her bed, turned on some hymns, and left the room to give myself a moment to collect myself, calm down, and start again. I felt so guilty that I was feeling frustrated. I felt so exhausted. I felt irritated that my eye was killing me for no apparent reason. I was mad that society portrays a mother's work as easy or a joke or even a lazy disappointment--because it is the single hardest thing I've ever done. I was feeling jealous of my husband who was reading theory and not having to wrestle a tiny strong-willed child. And did I mention? Feeling really really guilty that I was feeling any of these things at all. Because in my heart of hearts, I was happy and had all these blessings that I've been praying for for years.
I got down on my knees.
He was there. He always is. And somehow He never makes me feel bad for showing up late. There is this understanding between us--we both know I should have been here hours ago. But because we both know it, He never shoves it in my face. Instead He smiles, relieved that I have finally come to get His help. I stopped groaning, I stopped fighting it, I knelt down, and I let Him hold me. I told Him everything I was feeling--at first starting sentences with "I know I shouldn't feel this" and "I'm sorry that I am thinking these things" but after a couple more minutes of rocking ending with "I know you know" and "thank you for" sentences. I know that Christ healed lepers and blind men. I know He raised the dead and caused the lame to leap. I know He lives. I have a list of 12 really silly and unimportant things that I really need some healing in--my shame, my insecurity, my eye, my impatience, my lack of empathy, my pride, my selfishness, etc. And my baby girl is laying in her bed in the next room needing me. I am her whole world, and I really want her to have a constant, safe, loving world--not an insecure and reactionary one. Please heal me. I'm done holding onto it now.
I heard the hymns in the next room stop playing--E had found my phone and touched it somehow. I stood up, wiped my tear streaked face, and blinked. My eye was fine. My eye didn't hurt anymore. Maybe there is still some injury there, I don't know. But for the next while, He wouldn't make me feel it. I walked into E's room and she lay there, still, breathing deeply. She was ready. She was ready to give it away, to let go and let me step in and help her fall asleep. I picked her up in my arms. She looked up at me with sleepy gratitude. We sat down for a minute, and I cuddled her and let her drift off. She stopped groaning. She stopped fighting it. I can't know what was going on in her little mind, but there was a part of me that wondered whether there were the buds of some future thoughts in there: "Thanks mom. I know. We both know I should have been here hours ago." and "I have a list of 12 really silly and unimportant things that I really need some healing in--I don't know why I feel this way. My body doesn't let me move in all the ways I want to move. I feel so tired, but I really want to stay up and hang out with you. I don't have a name for any of the feelings or experiences that my body and mind are going through. I don't yet know how to control and interact with this body I've been given. Please heal me. I'm done holding onto it now."
And somehow I had the privilege to walk in and scoop her up and help take it away. She eventually let go, closed her eyes, and slept.
I have so many needs. I am so weak. I so quickly fall back into things I feel I should have mastered and moved on from by now. But somehow I get to be the one that comforts a little soul. I get to be the one that is just a little more capable and knows a little more of the big picture than she does, at least for now. And I get to have a tiny piece of what it feels like to take the bad away.
I will never stop being amazed by how much God loves me, answers my prayers, gave His son to die for me, and daily heals the hard and bad in my life.
But even that doesn't come close to the amazement that I feel that He gave me a daughter and with that, the chance to feel a little bit of what He feels. To become a little bit more like He is. To love a little more closely to the way He loves.
