I found out that my husband, Mark, was very sick and wouldn't be able to do the work that we had been doing. Within a week of getting that information, we found out that we were going to have another baby. I wasn't handling the news very well. I did a lot of complaining about my circumstances and I did a lot of crying. During prayer, I confessed to God that I didn't understand what He was doing. Romans 8:28 says, "And we know that in all things God worked for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." I knew that scripture, in my head, but my heart was screaming out, "I can't take it anymore!" With all the problems we were having, I couldn't see any good that could possibly come out of it. I felt as if God had abandoned us. Maybe he just stopped loving us. I know that God is more powerful than Satan so if God still loved us, why was he letting us go through all of this? Why didn't He just give us the things that we needed when we needed them and keep us from going through these hard things? my constant prayers were more like temper tantrums. I thank God for his faithfulness and the answer that he gave me.
When our son, Elijah was a new born, he would wake up, hungry, many times during the night. I would feed him and he would go back to sleep. He was now over a year old and still waking upfor a middle of the night bottle. Mark and I decided that he was to old to be getting a bottle, so we were trying to get him out of the habit. For the next four weeks when Elijah would wake up and whimper a little for his bottle, we would hold off giving it to him. Some of the nights he would whimper a little while , then go back to sleep and some of the nights he wouldn't. The nights that he didn't go right back to sleep, instead of giving him the bottle right away, we would give him his favorite stuffed animal. Some of the nights that would be enough to pacify him, he would go back to sleep. Some nights nothing but a bottle would get him to go back to sleep. This process was difficult, but it was working. Mark and I were happy at how well Elijah was doing.
One night Elijah woke up screaming, instead of the usual whimpering. I gave him his bottle. He laid down and drank a little, then stood up in his crib, screaming again. Mark picked him up and tried comforting him, but the crying kept up. I thought maybe he had a bad dream, he had done this a few times before. I had found at those times, after making sure nothing else was wrong, the best thing was to just let him cry. I knew he would cry for a few minutes, then settle down, and fall back to sleep.
When my oldest daughter, Christina was a baby, after she had been sleeping through the night for some time, she started waking up in the middle of the night. I would get her out of bed and hold her until she was quiet and looked sleepy, then I would put her back in her bed. The first few nights she would go right back to sleep, but each night it got harder and harder for her to get back to sleep. I didn't want her to cry. I didn't like to see her uncomfortable, but by getting her up every night, I was helping her to form a bad habit, that wasn't doing either one of us any good. I realized that I had to get tough the night I was laying on the floor of her room, half asleep, she had been wide awake, playing for an hour. It had progressed to this point over about a month.
The night that Mark and I were up with Elijah, I remembered what had happened with Christina. I felt that if we comforted Elijah until he was ready to go back to sleep, we might end up with the same situation. Mark and I kissed Elijah and we told him that we loved him, then we put him back in his crib and let him cry. He cried for a while, and not picking him up was a hard thing to do , but he finally did lay sown and go back to sleep. 2:30 am he was awake and crying again. It was then that I got the message that I believe God was trying to teach me.
When my baby cries, the first thing I do is make sure that he is okay. When I am sure of that, the second thing I do is decide what is going to be more important for the long run. Sometimes as parents we have to let our child be uncomfortable, if it's for that child's own good.
Christina got into a habit of being awake every night for a half hour to an hour. It wasn't good for her. Elijah was used to falling asleep with a bottle. When he was a baby, that was okay, but as he got older, it wasn't a good thing. And if we would have kept him up, comforting him, we might have helped him to substitute the bottle habit for a habit like Christina's. That wouldn't have been healthy for any of us. I hate to see my children cry, but there are times when it is important to stand back and let them be uncomfortable.
Christina was too young to understand why I didn't pick her up in the middle of the night. She cried every night for a week, and I laid there awake hating every minute of it. But after that week, she could sleep through the night. Elijah was too young to understand why he couldn't have a bottle during the night, he couldn't understand that we didn't want him to depend on that bottle to get to sleep. That was also hard, but now he sleeps without a bottle.
We all have to grow. What is good for a new born, is not good for an older child. And letting my child be uncomfortable in a circumstance doesn't mean that I don't love that child. What it does mean, is that I care so much for that child that I am willing to let him, or her, go through some hard things so that they can become a healthy child and grow into a healthy adult.
God knows what is best for me and my growth. What I see is that I am uncomfortable. I want things my way and I don't understand why I can't have them. James 1:2-4 tells us to, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because the testing of your faith developes perseverance. Perseverance must finish it's work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything."
I still don't understand the reason for what God is doing, but there is peace in knowing that he is my loving Father, and that he wants me to grow into a healthy adult, mature and complete.
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