He Gives Rest

Praise His Holy name :-)

This morning I attended a MOPs meeting and the speaker spoke about something truly interesting: taking rest v. allowing God to bring you rest. She explained that when we try to take rest, we respond to the early end of naptime with an inner scream of 'no!' instead of a gentle and nurturing 'what's wrong?'.

And so today I got the opportunity to practice, of course.

Naptime ended after 40 minutes. And I prayed. I prayed on my way to her room that God would love that shrieking and independence-seeking toddler through me. As it became apparent that naptime would not likely be resumed soon, I tried to empty the dishwasher. When that failed, I tried to read 'what to expect the toddler years' to see if it gets easier while she played. When that failed I just wandered into the next room with her, praying that God would enable me to experience His rest right where I was, doing what I was doing. I tired to silence the voice that kept telling me 'you can't' to every wonderment that crossed through my mind. And then an amazing - and totally anticipate-able - thing happened.

God gave me His rest.

This little girl that has refused to be self-entertained since last Friday sat on the futon and pointed out faces in my open scrapbooks. And I found myself with my shoulders relaxed as I arranged photos on a piece of patterned paper with the dog resting at my feet. And I wasn't impatient or stressed about how long it would last.

Truly, He hears us when we cry and He is able and desires to do amazingly more than we are ever bold enough to ask or imagine.

Just maybe, I'll actually survive Madalyn's toddler years :-)