Imago Dei in Motherhood - Part 2 - Rest

I was fourteen months into motherhood when I sat my husband down for The Talk. Our first child Owen was a capital-A Awful sleeper, and for the prior four hundred twenty-two nights, I had not slept more than four consecutive hours at a time. My eyes consistently felt like sand, and I was beginning to feel like some kind of love child between a sloth and a zombie. The time had come where I just couldn't take it anymore.

I needed sleep, and I needed my husband to know it.

The three of us had fought the good fight of sleep, trying every sleep-training method under the sun. I’d read all the books. I’d read all the mommy forums that the Internet had to offer. I’d talked to our pediatrician; I’d talked to anyone who would listen - friends, older women at church, kind-looking strangers at the park - trying to find a way to get my son to sleep at night and have him stay asleep.

The only thing that had helped him sleep was to nurse him in the middle of the night, and while my husband offered moral support from his side of the bed, I’d hit my breaking point.

So, we talked.

I told him we had now reached the point where I needed to stay asleep for an entire night, or I might actually die. I proposed a plan for that very night: I would go upstairs, far away from the nursery, put in some heavy-duty ear plugs, and he would get up with Owen and do his boobless best. He agreed, and his optimism was inspiring, if not misguided.

That night, I slept like the dead. When I opened my eyes the next morning, I didn’t even know where I was. I looked down towards my feet and realized I had not moved once in 8.5 hours - the blankets were still smooth as when I’d slipped into them the night before, and I was still on my back.

I stumbled down the stairs to find my husband and baby groggily bonding over some Cheerios. I ventured a “How did it go?” My husband just shook his head. It had not, apparently, gone well. But as for me? I felt like a new woman! I felt like I could wash and fold the laundry! I felt like I could see color in the world again. I felt like a butterfly emerged from her ear-plugged cocoon. I felt rested.

But, like all good things, it didn’t last; we still had a few months of terrible sleep in front of us before we somehow turned a corner, and by some act of God, my son learned to sleep through the night. But I will never forget that rest. It was a deep, restorative rest.

At some point in those four hundred twenty-two days after Owen was born, I heard a sermon on Psalm 127...you know, the bit about how useless it is for the watchmen to watch over the city at night and the builders to build, unless the Lord himself is watching and building? Oh...and how God gives to his beloved sleep? I remember glancing over at my husband, who already knew I was rolling my eyes - which every day looked more and more like a raccoon’s - because we could not even remember what decent sleep felt like anymore.

I am happy to say that we have now reached the point in parenting where most nights, our children sleep through the night, and while I miss those newborn snuggles something fierce, I do not hate sleeping like humans were intended to.

But I still struggle with rest. I think most of us moms understand what it is like to begin the day to the starter’s pistol of a baby’s cry, and then sprint the turns of cereal and laundry and preschool drop off, then pickup, and naptime battles, and afternoon snacks, and the fourth-grade math homework, and the hunt for the missing pacifier during witching hour,and finding all the baseball practice gear, only to enter the homestretch of dinner and baths and bedtimes and last glasses of water and last kisses and last books before collapsing into a heap of Netflix and Instagram scrolling. Our days are marathon sprints; add a busy or anxious mind to that mix, and rest is as elusive as that pacifier you finally found on the dark side of the couch.

But just as when our kids are agitated or crabby or having a rough day, we know they need a break, some down time, a solid nap...we don’t take them to Chuck E. Cheese and fill them with candy. We factor naps or early bedtimes into their day. We demand they rest. We know what they need before they do.

And God does that for us. He designed our bodies for sleep! He designed our bodies for rest! At the very beginning of the story of creation, just seven days in, God pauses, and models the importance of taking a deep breath and stopping the presses. Jesus himself took frequent breaks from baptizing and healing the blind and the crowds who followed him (Luke 6, Mark 6).

Mama, take heart. I am not going to tell you to get up a little earlier so you can spend extra time in the morning lounging in those green pastures He’s leading you to (Psalm 23:2). I know you’re tired, and I know the baby woke up three times before he ended up in your bed, somehow lying on your face. I am not going to tell you to hire a babysitter and get to a spa for a day to "TREAT YO' SELF," because, maybe you like me, live nowhere near family, and babysitters are hard to come by. Or maybe you like me have a baby who will not, for any amount of coaxing in the world, take a bottle. I am not going to tell you to get out and take a walk because Lord knows pushing a stroller full of snack-greedy kids while trying not to have your arm yanked off by your squirrel-greedy dog is anything close to restful.

What I’m asking you to do is this: each time you move your children towards rest...whether that’s a twenty-seven-step routine involving all of their stuffed animals and four readings of The Hungry Caterpillar, or whether you are placing a kiss atop your greasy-headed teenage man-child’s head as he crosses paths with you on his way to the pantry for more chips at 10:45 pm while you make your way into bed, know that your Father desires rest for you and your soul just as much as you desire it for your own children. He is giving us permission to rest - physically, mentally, emotionally - because He does not have to. He never sleeps or slumbers (Psalm 121:4). He is completing the good work He has begun in you and in your kids (Philippians 1:6). He sees your notes app in your phone, your day planner, and the kitchen family calendar, and all that is undone and raises you an "It is Finished" (John 19:30). He sees you and all that you need to do, and still, He tells us, He invites us: Rest.

Know anew His hope and love for you - for a restful existence - even as your prioritize rest for your own children.

Imago Dei in Motherhood - Part 2 - Rest

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