the night lingers on. each second crawling to the next in what feels like an eternity. a cruel joke, really. another sleepless night, up with the baby as she refuses to sleep anywhere else but in my lap, upright in a rocking chair.
exhausted and frustrated, i can't see beyond the sleep-deprivation toward anything worthwhile or meaningful. this will always be it. nothing to contribute to the world, no gifts to share, no lives to change. how can i? without a moment to myself to breathe, think, plan, move mountains? sleep?
but then a thought flickers that maybe, just maybe, there's the slightest chance that this is my contribution. these are the mountains moving. for this season, anyway. void of glamour, reward postponed until years later, the epitome of delayed gratification. this is motherhood in the trenches.
besides, i wonder if maybe there is something, a selfishness, in me that needs to die. and maybe it requires the long and frustrating nights to starve it out, minute by exhausting minute.
i wonder if i've been raised up to believe it's all about me? this is American culture, after all: i can do anything i want to do. i should follow my dreams. i should be careful that in becoming a mother, i do not lose myself.
but what if, in the losing, there's really finding?
as everything is scrubbed away, true beauty is revealed, and it's really just Him?
motherhood in the trenches: none of it simple, none of it easy, none of it glamorous. but it's precisely that which He uses to refine, build up, strip away, make beautiful... to make me more like Him. to develop that relationship He so desires.
exhausted and frustrated, i can't see beyond the sleep-deprivation toward anything worthwhile or meaningful. this will always be it. nothing to contribute to the world, no gifts to share, no lives to change. how can i? without a moment to myself to breathe, think, plan, move mountains? sleep?
but then a thought flickers that maybe, just maybe, there's the slightest chance that this is my contribution. these are the mountains moving. for this season, anyway. void of glamour, reward postponed until years later, the epitome of delayed gratification. this is motherhood in the trenches.
besides, i wonder if maybe there is something, a selfishness, in me that needs to die. and maybe it requires the long and frustrating nights to starve it out, minute by exhausting minute.
i wonder if i've been raised up to believe it's all about me? this is American culture, after all: i can do anything i want to do. i should follow my dreams. i should be careful that in becoming a mother, i do not lose myself.
but what if, in the losing, there's really finding?
as everything is scrubbed away, true beauty is revealed, and it's really just Him?
motherhood in the trenches: none of it simple, none of it easy, none of it glamorous. but it's precisely that which He uses to refine, build up, strip away, make beautiful... to make me more like Him. to develop that relationship He so desires.
* maybe you liked that first quote up there? well, i have a print you can buy right here
Yes yes yes. This is exactly where I'm at this morning with red eyes and fussy babies. I need a servants heart this morning. Him through me to serve my babies. I needed this, friend. Thanks!!
ReplyDeleteThis. Yes! So needed to read this.
ReplyDeleteLindsey, I wrote this earlier this week, to post today... and I really needed to read it again this morning too. Funny how that happens?
DeleteSo good! When my older son was still a baby he would give me terrible nights, waking up time after time crying. I decided I would make it a really traumatizing but effective reminder to myself to pray for him frequently. When I stood above his crib wishing he would drift off and I could have my life back again I would remember to pray for him, for his life, for his future. I didn't do it always, but every little bit counts, right? Trials are such an amazing opportunity for good, if we can see them that way in the moment!
ReplyDeleteBut. I totally feel your pain, too. Oh Lord, do I. :)