Why is it that something happens when I feel the least equipped to handle it?
When my soul is weary, when I am frustrated, alone, when the laundry is piled high and the toys are scattered across the floor, that's when it goes down - inevitably, that's the same time that the baby starts to cry, throws a temper, refuses to nurse, and goes down at bedtime crying when he never does that sort of thing. When I've already had a day of feeling sorry for myself, he is out of sorts in ways I cannot comfort, ways I cannot understand and I put him down after lullabies and rocking and kissing, inconsolable, and I feel sorry for myself all over again. I can't even comfort my own child. I cannot understand his needs; I don't know what's wrong and how to fix it. And so along with his tears come mine.
Not the way I like his day to end.
Not the way I like mine to, either.
I'm about to go in again and sing to him, and he stops as I am just heading to the door. He's okay. And I don't dare to breathe, in case he hears me. I sneak up the stairs, fearing every creak. But he's out like a light. In that moment, when all is still again, I hear my insides sigh. I am sorry for my frustration. I am sorry my baby was sad. But I am most sorry that in those moments of hurry and chaos that I do not reach out to the Hand of Grace. Instead, I live in the chaos, in the frustration and tears and feel validated in my suffering. Instead, I wallow, frustration mounting with each tick of the clock at my situation - alone, tired, and unable to figure out my own flesh and blood.
And as my baby sleeps in the quiet, forgetting his troubles as he enters deep slumber, I pour myself a cup of coffee, and ask forgiveness for missing the grace. I've missed His grace in the chaos. I've failed to see His hand upholding myself and my son as we do battle tonight, striving for this moment's unattainable harmony. Bedtime has not been such a hardship ... well, ever. But I'm missing the point. The point isn't achieving perfection in his bedtime routine. Things happen - some nights are off. Does this mean all falls apart and I have failed as his mother and life will never be the same for him? Hardly. But in the moment, my tired mind says I'm a terrible mother and I did something to throw him off and now we're in for a bad night. We may indeed be in for a rough night, but that's okay. Because even there, in those wee hours, there will be grace. It is not dependent upon performance or circumstance. It is dependent upon an unchanging God.
And this God loves me.
I am His child, too, you know. As my child is to me, I am to my Father. It seems unfathomable that He loves me more than I love my son. Or that He loves my son more than I do. But He does. And He's a big picture kind of Father. He sees beyond tonight, when I cannot see past this moment. Some days are not perfect - no days are. Some days seem worse than others, but in the good and the bad, in the triumphs and failures, there is Grace.
This is not all there is - this is but a whisper of time. He gives immeasurable grace for each test of the whispers, the vapors. He gives a deep breath, a moment of soul-quieting and clarity. He is kind and comforting. And I needed to be reminded. Lessons in grace, lessons in the ugly. Lessons in the tired and in the tears.
I am thankful.
"God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ ... and raised us up together ... that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus."
