Absence

I got a call from my mom (from Australia) last week because I hadn't posted in a while and she was worried.  I'm just sleep deprived, which makes it difficult to put thoughts together.

To my children, when you have children:

None of you were good sleepers.  I spent 8+ years running on almost no sleep.  Currently I'm getting four 30 minutes "naps" during the night, and maybe one hour long nap in the afternoon.  I shouldn't even be able to stand upright, but I am being upheld by a power greater than I.

I have read all the books and tried all the techniques.  None of them worked.  I asked advice of everyone I met, and found no answers.  The truth is, every single baby and every single mother and every single situation are so different.  I find myself frustrated (due to exhaustion) that you won't sleep.

The answer, I believe, is that I must endure.  This, too, shall pass.  I wake in the mornings and take a few minutes to orient myself, but then I am able to prepare meals and clean the house and cuddle with you and smile with friends and run a house and work a business and volunteer at church.  My life moves forward each day and I am blessed with patience that grows each day and a clarity of mind that defies the amount of sleep I am giving it.

Not everything has a solution.  I imagine that each of you will face a challenge, like this, that must be endured.  In the Old Testament, the Israelites took 40 years to journey to the promised land, that was a direct trip of about 6-8 weeks.  Sometimes we must take the long road.

I hope your babies sleep for you.  If they don't, take heart in knowing I have been there, and survived.  If they do sleep, then know that you will face some challenge or another that won't have a solution.  You, too, will read and research and talk and question and pray, and still you will come up empty.  But if you take a moment to examine the challenge and find that you are somehow endowed with superhuman strength to endure, then there is a good chance God is taking you the long way around.  It is strengthening you, teaching you, and shaping you into a better human being.  Embrace the challenge and face it head on, and when it nearly beats you, then do what it takes to just get through the day.  One day you will wake up and it will have passed, and in time you will look back and wonder if it really was as hard as you once thought.  The memory of the hardship will ebb away and you will stand at the edge and it won't seem the great challenge it once was.  Others will wonder how you endured, and you will shrug your shoulders and say it wasn't such a great thing, that others have challenges that you couldn't imagine having to go through.