I babysat my cousin’s daughter Wednesday night. She’s ten months old and absolutely adorable.
I walked her around and bounced her to put her to sleep. When I attempted to lay her down, she awoke and the cycle repeated itself a few times. Finally, she went down and stayed down. For me, this was the moment of freedom to search the internet and have dinner.
An hour later, she woke up again. I calmed her down and tried to get her back to sleep. The problem was the wood floors in their bedroom would creak as I attempted to escape, and she would wake up. Then, the dog decided to very loudly drink water, which was the end of my dreams.
She wanted to be held, but she wanted me to stand up and hold/rock her. At this point in time, my back was hurting. I was like little girl I can’t stand up and rock you anymore, and she was having a fit. Finally, I was able to sit and rub her back while she moaned and groaned her tiredness.
When her mom got back, I was like no more nighttime babysitting. LOL.
It did get me thinking about me and my own selfishness.
It is very easy to sacrifice time and energy when it’s convenient. Not so easy to sacrifice when it’s inconvenient.
It this case, it was a baby who needed something from an adult.
There are areas in my life where I am not fully developed and need to be handled with kid gloves. There are areas in other people’s lives where they need to be handled with kids gloves.
It was not reasonable for me to expect Sade to put herself back to sleep. As a non-mother, I had to get over the selfish part of me that expected the experience to flow how I wanted it to flow, which would have been her being sleep for the rest of the night.
I say all that to say that most people still have a little bit of a child in them. It’s very easy to wound the child, which can be quite damaging. So, I’m hoping to learn to love people and be gentle with people just where they are. I’m hoping folks will do the same for me.
1 comment:
That post brings back memories of my first night home with Rachel. I delivered her and then felt great, so went home that same day. Being a naive new mother, I thought I would be fine. I hadn't had a night of rest after delivery yet, but I felt good! So we go home and get settled and try to get baby to sleep.....but she keeps crying! So I rock her and walk around with her and she gets quiet. But every time I put her down, she cries! Joe went to bed and I thought I could eventually get baby to sleep, but no way! She would not even get quiet unless I was bouncing and walking around! Somewhere in the wee hours of the night, the effects of delivery caught up with me. I woke Joe up, I'm shaking from exhaustion and I am sure I had a nervous twitch in my eye. I told him, "If you don't get up and take over, I'm going to go crazy and fall over!" So he took over and I went to bed. But it was one rough night!!!
Your post also reminded me of charity (go look up 1 Corinthians 13). Our family recently studied what charity is. In it's simplest form, charity is the pure love of Christ...how does He love us? With no thought to His own gain, with kindness, no evil thoughts, no pride... So my point is HE IS PERFECT! So He is our perfect example of how to love. We look to that example and try to follow it, but we will ALWAYS fall short because we are not perfect. He "has arrived" and we haven't yet. I stare this fact in the face almost daily when dealing with my kids. I love them so much, yet I fall short everyday of that perfect love! I have learned, though, to savor those moments when "I do it right". I have moments when I stop thinking of myself and give to my family and it feels great that I loved the way Christ would have loved them. So I mess up sometimes! God knew that would happen when He sent us all down here and He's not standing up in Heaven shaking His finger at us for being what He knew we would be. But I KNOW He rejoices in our "moments" of loving one another! Yes, He wants us to repent when we go the wrong way, but that's so we can be free from sin and rejoin Him in the joy of His love. I just know that I felt a big relief when I changed my view on "messing up"...I decided that my mistakes were indeed bad and needed to be fixed, but they were learning opportunities. If I make a mistake , I need to evaluate the situation, see what I could have done differently and then the next time I have a similar situation come along, do all I can to make the changes. It sounds simple but can actually be very hard. Just REMEMBERING my plan to do things differently can be a challenge! But I've noticed that if I don't give up and keep trying to make progress, I eventually do remember and start to make my changes. Each time the situation returns (and it's a guarantee that it will return!!!), I remember quicker and do things better. We are a work in progress! I figure, if I am making progress, that's all that matters! I am then making steps away from my faults and not sitting in them.
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