Blog 4: God Won't Let Me Sleep

I received my wake up scream at 3:30 this morning. For whatever reason India was having trouble sleeping last night. I went into her room several times to sing to her and rub her back, which helped each time, just not for long. By 4:30 or so it seemed apparent that my technique wasn’t going to work so I got her out of the crib and took her into the big people’s bed. That didn’t work well either, so Jenny got up with her and took her downstairs for a while. Frustrating. She has been sleeping through the night for so long now and then…..then she shows me once again that she is the greatest theology teacher I have ever had. It is, as one might imagine, not the most pleasant experience to be woken up half-way through your sleep by a screaming baby. It takes a certain amount willpower to stand at a crib and sing and soothe when really all you want to do is sleep. It takes a whole other type of willpower to not give in to the urge to pick her up and hold her and rock her until she falls back asleep. As a dad I really can’t do anything else but respond to her crying, but sometimes I don’t respond in a way that she wants me to. Of course that makes her mad and frustrated, and I SO want to make it better, but it would not be good for her in the long run. She needs to be able to put herself to sleep. She needs to learn, by experience, that she doesn’t need to be rescued every time she has some distress, that she can handle it herself.
I think God must have a similar struggle with us, his children. I know that as a Father he responds to our cries and feels our pain with us and I bet he just wants to fix it and make it better for us as well-but that is not what we really need. He is more than our Father, he is our teacher. Even if it feels like God is ignoring me I am convinced that because he is totally good, because he is the author of love, even in the midst of any of my turmoil he wants nothing but the best for me. We he needs to he swoops me up in his embrace, but when that doesn’t happen then I know that it is time for me to learn something and he must believe that I can do it. Who am I to argue?