Exhaustion

If you know me in real life, you probably know that our son E doesn't sleep well. We've been working and working to try and find ways to help him stay asleep in his bed, but he's just not a good sleeper, and something happens every time we start to get a good thing going (staying overnight away from home, another dang tooth coming in, etc).

Normally we make do, but this past week, oh man. This past week I've had a sinus infection, which is not the end of the world (I sleep with my mouth open like a boss). But I've had a bad cough. One that's been keeping me up - last night until after 2. And it means that I can't go back to sleep in the morning when Stephen wakes up with Ezra.

I don't know how to tell when I've reached a point where I cannot function anymore, but I've got to be close to it. Having one night (or three) of bad sleep isn't the end of the world when you've been getting an uninterrupted 7 or 8 hours for weeks before, you know? But it's not the same when you've been deprived of quality sleep for almost two years.

Anyway, I realized today that I've been taking a lot of blame for Ezra's sleeping on myself - the if we'd done something different, he'd be sleeping well kind of responsibility that really is hazy. It's possible there's something that will help him that we haven't tried. I've been feeling like a failure since we don't know how to help him, and we just keep trying different things, and nothing is clearly working any better than sheer luck.

But the Lord is so gracious. Yesterday, Ezra woke too early from his nap. He slept too long to be able to go back to sleep, but he needed to sleep longer, so he just lay in my lap, dozed, and fussed for a half an hour (y'all, that is an extraordinary thing!). I got to hold him and love on him, and stir up those feelings of compassion, that, poor guy, he couldn't behave any better because he was out of resources to cope with.

During my quiet time today, I was just telling the Lord how utterly spent I am. The total exhaustion that says, "I have nothing left to give." He had me go lay down in our bed and reminded me of yesterday, when I was holding Ezra. The Lord isn't upset or disappointed in the way we've parented E. He isn't even upset that I haven't been "on good behavior" lately. He knows I'm spent. He knows my "poor little body" has had to run on less than it needs for a long time. He understands I can't pull it together. He wants to pull it together for me. He wants to carry me when I can't even stand anymore. He doesn't wish I was stronger or better or different.

It was just what I didn't know I needed to hear. Thanks God, for being so good.