Calming an overtired baby is one of the great challenges of motherhood. Nothing in this world can console a child who needs to sleep but refuses to do so. Rock, sing, bounce, and swaddle, but the crying continues; arms flail, backs arch, anything to avoid sleep. A child will work themselves into misery rather than surrender to peaceful slumber. .
When my boys were infants, Sunday mornings were a ruthless challenge. Our church meets in school gym, so there is no quiet place to escape to when baby needs a nap. The church service aligned perfectly with morning naptime. More often than not, by the end of the sermon, my baby was near meltdown. From experience, I knew the cure to his ailment.
I would stand in the back and bounce the child relentlessly. I’d wrap his blanket tight around his arms and legs and hold him tight with one hand so he couldn’t flail about, and with the other, I’d try to keep him interested in the pacifier. Still he would arch his back and grunt, trying his very best to get out of my arms and stay awake.
One Sunday as we were going through this routine, and I wondered what on earth was wrong with my child, the song we were singing soaked through my distraction and made me pay attention.
My heart is glad that you called me your own
‘Cause there’s no place I’d rather be
Than in your arms of love
Holding me sill, holding me near
In your arms of love.
(In you Arms of Love written by Craig Musseau, performed by Kutless)
Every time my son squirmed, I held on tighter. I knew he needed rest more than anything and was not about to consider his opinion on the subject. I know his needs better than he does. Then I thought about how hard I fight God to do my own thing when all he wants is for me to rest in him.
We get to the point where life is a battlefield, don’t we? We see daily challenges and we fight our way through them, because we have decided that is what must be done. We refuse to rest, instead pushing toward some un-named goal. Life rages around us. We have things to do, places to go, obligations to fulfill.
Car trouble becomes and obstacle to getting to the grocery store. A sick child demands to be held so we don’t get a shower, no one cleans the house and dinner gets ignored. Inclement weather keeps us home instead of traveling for the holidays. There are two ways of looking at these things.
Life is wrapping us up in rope and tying us to the railroad tracks. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel, but it’s train.
Or Someone is telling us to rest.
Instead of getting frustrated at circumstances we have no control over, we should try resting in his arms of love. On the days we embrace the circumstances that force us to slow down, we will refresh instead of obsess. God will reveal himself in the most unexpected ways if we let him. Be still and know that I am God.
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