Have you ever lived with a sleepwalker? Quite humorously my husband and his family all sleepwalk and talk. I’ve woken up in the night to find him hitting his pillow against the wall, jumping on the bed and giving speeches. (It cracks me up every time.) My children have received this lovely gift from him- Abigael in particular. Most the time she just walks out of her room and giggles- yes kinda cute, kinda creepy- but every now and then we get a treat. Last night was just such.
Last night was a mommy-daddy date night (after seeing popcorn bags out the night before, Nate asked incredulously why we would dare to have a party/moment without him, and we knew we were in desperate need for a little time…). When we came home, Taylor marched up the stairs in my parents house to retrieve our slumbering oldest from the bed. He reached down and easily scooped her little floppy body up. It was at this moment she chose her to grace us with her incoherent wisdom-
“Daddy. Daddy. I got this. I got this. Yeah. I got this,” she responded as she lay helplessly draped across his arms.
Taylor just looked at me and smiled as we tried our best not to burst into laughter and wake her. He gently said back to her- “Ok baby. You got this. Daddy is just carrying you.” It seemed so completely obvious to us that she very much did NOT have this. She in fact was totally and completely reliant on him to get her where she needed to go.
Next we went to get Nate who normally sleeps next to her at their house. However Nate was not in the bed. Nor was he in the other bed, or the couch, or the other couch, or the floors, or my parents bed…. after scrambling to find my missing child, I heard his daddy upstairs. “I found him.” He was asleep and hidden completely under the bed, barely to be seen, covered by a protective fortress of soft pillows.
Children. They have a way of simplifying life for us, don’t they? Tucked away, with our walls erected to keep us safe, when in fact, the safest place to be is in our Daddy’s arms. I love that his daddy knows him- he was not lost or forgotten.
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths (with pillows around me), you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. -Psalm 139
It’s good to know we are never lost from Him.
And yet I find myself in a much more similar position to Abigael most of the time. When my Daddy picks me up, I still for some reason need to explain to Him that I’ve got this. Why? Why do I want God to know that I’m capable when I’m so obviously not without Him? Does he chuckle like we did? Does smile and let me believe I’m in control while he supports me entirely? Deep down, I want to be carried and supported and cradled. How nice to not know what the plan is all the time- or not know exactly how things will turn out, I think? To rest in our Daddy’s arms without a care in the world is a luxury we are all given yet we so rarely take advantage of. Somewhere between 8 and 18 we decide that we are big enough and strong enough to take the reins from Jesus, you know- to help Him out. Whether its our own pride in asking for help, our doubt that He is strong enough to carry us, or simply our own desire to pat ourselves on the back when “we’ve got this”- all of it is about as ridiculous as watching Abiagel declare her confidence while laying cradled in Taylor’s arms. Perhaps this week I’ll try something new. Maybe this week I’ll open a sleepy eye and look into my Daddy’s face, completely and totally trusting His love for me and ability to carry me where I need to go; I’ll say- “Daddy, Daddy, you’ve got this. Yeah, you’ve got this.” and lay my head back down on His chest. Maybe I’ll try that.