Every once in a great while I still hear that cry in the night and make my way down the hall to sooth a sweet baby. (FYI… I will call them babies as long as I want, it doesn’t matter that they are 4 and nearly 3, they are my babies and always will be. So there.)
However, it is a rarity these days to be woken and needed, but when this happened last week I realized something so precious about this time with my little ones.
It is a sacred time I get to spend with my babes. When I was in the throws of it and literally bouncing back and forth, like a ping pong ball, between the doors in the hall, I could barely see the beauty.
But oh how I tried.
I tried to cherish the snuggles.
I tried to cherish the bonding.
It was so hard and I could barely keep my eyes open since it had been night after night for months of ping-ponging.
But when my sweet girl needed me last week it was different. I wasn’t totally and completely exhausted. I wasn’t begging God to help her fall back to sleep. (Don’t act like you haven’t pleaded for some intervention from the Creator of the universe in the dead of night.) Instead, I was fully present with her. I snuggled her until she fell back to sleep in my arms. I noticed her breathing, smelled her hair and rubbed her back.
However, something else happened that night.
I found myself in deep thought and communication with God.
This was place I hadn’t been in a long while.
That night I realized during that awful “up all night, every night” season I was in deeper conversation with my Maker than I had ever been before. I was desperate for Him, for His help, and His comfort. The middle of the night conversation flowed so freely from gratitude, fears, concerns, hopes and dreams.
