Just curious. Where were you last Saturday morning at about, say, 3 a.m.?
Because I was stuck under Nate’s crib.
It’s a long story.
~
Josh spends many an hour at the farmhouse, and I’m desperate to be involved. So desperate, in fact, that I will gladly scrape ancient wallpaper off the shiplap if it means that I can play even a tiny role in getting that house done and my gang moved in. So last Friday afternoon, I scraped, Josh removed walls, Edy and Hattie removed nails, Christian ate raisins, and Nate fussed.
In stroke of motherly genius I strapped the sleepy babe onto my chest and on I went. He conked and I finished removing the lovely circa 1940’s pine-branch explosion-esque paper that someone—in a blatant display of utter disregard for the future soul who would have to remove it—had shellacked to the walls.
As seen here:
A few hours later, home, bathed and in jammies, I noticed Nate’s little head was splotchy red. The splotches spread to his forehead, tummy, and back, and was, apparently, very itchy. I realized that in my motherly genius, I had likely (and inadvertently, of course) covered his baby-soft cuteness in circa 1940’s wallpaper dust. His skin did not like it. Apparently.
So he was unhappy that night. All night. Crying and itching and making his mother feel just awful about her little wallpaper endeavor. I was just trying to be helpful, darn it.
But there I was.
Up.
Again.
At 3 a.m.
Fishing in the darkness for his paci, which I dropped, and it bounced and rolled to the far corner underneath his bed.
Again.
Down on my belly and wedged under the crib railing and between the bed and a rocking chair, I cursed that blamed paci. I could graze its edge with my fingertips but was a half a centimeter away from being able to grab it. And I was stuck. Honestly, stuck. I couldn’t move forward. I couldn’t move to the side. I couldn’t reach the pacifier, and backing out was not an option. I needed that paci.
I was stuck under the bed in the wee hours and no one knew it.
It was a rather pathetic moment for me.
And as ridiculous as I must have looked, I couldn’t drum up any laughter. Instead, I felt very alone. Sobbing seemed like the right thing to do at the moment, in fact. No one saw me. No one knew. Why not just drop the whole grown-woman façade and cry about it?
So I did.
But you know what came to mind then, mid-cry? The silliest thing.
God sees me.
It’s not silly that he sees me. No. It’s silly that that’s what came to mind—God sees me—a Bible lesson that originated in Christian’s class the Sunday before.
I had helped out in his classroom for the first time that week. Five or six wide-eyed toddlers had listened while I read about how God sees us just as he saw David, a young, unimportant shepherd boy, and chose him to be king. God saw David’s heart, and he was pleased. I showed them a picture of David, his harp, and a few fuzzy sheep. We sang “God sees me” to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell. We played with puppets and ate goldfish and a graham cracker. It was a sweet time, but I had no idea if any of it stuck for any of them.
Funny. It sure stuck for me.
In a moment of helpless, lonely distress. That’s what came to mind.
God sees me.
Toddler-sized theology, yes, but just what I needed. (And not just when I was stuck under the bed.)
These last few weeks have not been easy, and I have needed to remember more than once that God sees me. He sees my heart. He sees my struggles. He has not forgotten his Hannah.
It sounds small, but it’s huge.
This is the God of the universe we’re talking about. And he sees me. He sees you.
We are not alone, not ever.
Isn’t that beautiful?
No matter how toddler-sized, it’s a truth worth remembering.
I needed that this week. Did you?
(You might try setting it to Farmer in the Dell too. There’s a tune you won’t get out of your head for a good long while.)
Ah, friend, I too have been stuck under a crib in the wee hours searching for a dadblame paci. Go ahead and have your cry because God does see you, and loves you, and for some reason, we always forget that but then remember it in the most trying of times. And 3 a.m. is always a trying time.
Should we start a countdown to May?
Absolutely, Lindsey. I saw several writerly-friends posting about being at Allume last week, and I nearly cried (again.) I hate missing out on all the fun. I guess it will make Blue Ridge all that much sweeter though, won’t it? Thanks, as always, for reading. Don’t I know now how busy it is for moms of four…
Sorry you are up in the middle of the night, so many nights. Sorry you felt along. But glad you found that God was there with you and thanks for sharing that with us. What an encouragement for us to take when we’re in our own times of feeling alone. God sees. God is sympathetic. How comforting that is.
Praying for you and the family and the farm.
Thank you, for the prayers and everything. I hate to make my situation sound worse than it is. There are certainly harder circumstances to be in…it’s just hard to remember that in the middle of the night for some reason. Self-pity seems to be a bit of a night owl. 🙂
Ah, the ugly cry in lonely moments. Thanks for sharing. I had one of those last night, but before midnight and just because writing is hard sometimes and I get angry at it. 🙂
Thanks for continuing to point us to God’s grace and love in our pathetic little moments of humanity.
I love when people can relate. 🙂 Thanks, dear Janet. I can’t imagine you being angry at anything, but I’ll take your word for it. 🙂
I’m catching up on Hannah posts, and I still love every one of them, but I can really relate to this one. First, that you learned from the toddler lesson (that’s me several times), and second that I also find it amazing and wonderfully comforting that God sees me and cares. Thanks for this!
Thank you, Heather. I’m honored that you’d use your precious time to “catch up.” Can’t wait to catch up with you again in person. 🙂