Rest

Toddlers have an amazing gift of reflecting the anxiety in a room.  This week has been a rather exciting and stressful one in our family.  We found out that we are moving and to where we are moving.  My father and sister are visiting from far away.  We spent a day looking at graduate schools for my sister as she approaches her graduation next year.  There is a lot of energy in our house right now, and tonight, for the first time in quite awhile, we had a really difficult time getting our daughter to go to sleep.  Nothing quite worked.  She was obviously tired, obviously needed to rest.  It was exactly her bedtime.  We went through the routine pristinely.  And yet she was just wired.  I could hardly blame her.  I was wired, too.  "O God," I had been praying just minutes before trying to put her to bed, "Transitions can be so difficult.  Please make us all ready.  Please speak peace to my heart..."

After awhile of trying to get my daughter to fall asleep like she usually does, I gave up.  I stopped singing and began to talk softly and honestly with her.  "I know that there are a lot of things that are different right now.  Grandpa and Auntie Beth are here.  We are getting ready to move.  You haven't been with Mommy as much as you are use to.  Things seem so strange right now.  But now it is time to sleep.  Close your eyes... Close your eyes...  It is time to rest..."

I think one of the hardest aspects of dealing with so much transition at once is that I have a tendency to want to think, think, think about it.  And yet I heard part of God's answer to my prayer as I reflected upon my own words to my daughter as I soothed her to sleep tonight.  Things are really unsettled and unsettling right now.  It is strange and you don't know what to expect...  But rest...  Be still and know that you can rest...  Close your eyes, be quiet, lean deeply into the arms of your Father, know that he will take care of everything, and rest...