I’m up early today, or did I ever really sleep? I think maybe I’ve just been up since yesterday. Eyes hurting from exhaustion. But I must get up. I must push.
I climb back in bed from nursing the baby back to sleep. My alarm will go off in 45 minutes. At least I have 45 minutes. Close eyes.
“Mommy,” I hear. “Mommy, I wet my bed.” I push back the covers and get out and take her hand back to her room. We find some new undies and pants and I cover over the wet spot with a few blankets. We’ll clean everything up in the morning. I stroke her sweet messy bed-hair, whisper an I-love-you and head back to my bed.
Returning to my bed, I glance at the time. I have 30 minutes until my alarm goes off. Snuggle in warm and cozy.
I hear a cry in the monitor.
Another child wakes and I go to him. He and I sit and stare for a minute. He doesn’t know where he is it seems. “Car, Car” as in “where’s my car?” He sleeps with his car. We search for the removable wheels and find them all and put his car back together. I put blankets on him and pray and stroke his head. Always 2 prayers. Always.
I head back to bed. I am angry. Not at the children, really. They’re children and I will always go to them, help them. Just tired and angry. I don’t know where it comes from. I really don’t. It’s just the thought of doing the whole day with this little sleep overwhelms me. How will I make my body move and my brain think until 10pm tonight?
I throw on my workout clothes and head downstairs. My husband is already there. We exchange morning mumbles with smiles at each other. He sees my exhaustion. He comes to me and wraps his arms around me and says, “Let’s pray.”
What a grace. With loving arms wrapped around me as I’m feeling so low, he prays for me and our family and his work and we commit the day to the Lord.
That’s how my body will move and my brain will think today. I will do nothing except surrender into the arms of Love.
“That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.” ~2 Cor. 12:10
Will this verse ever really make sense? Ever really sink in for me? I am starting to feel it. Understand it.
But just starting.