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Last night Ezra was up a few times during the night due to teething and our dog, Francis, decided he wanted to keep licking his injured foot. It made for a long night that left me pretty tired this morning. (And each morning I wake up tired I wonder how in the world I’m going to be able to handle having an infant on top of this). I will tell you that I really don’t like mornings, or that I used to like them when I was able to get enough sleep and wake up at an opportune time in my sleep cycle. Mornings often show me the true state of myself: angry, frustrated and feeling entitled to at least 7 solid in-a-row hours of sleep.

This morning my mom watched Ezra and I went to the Ladies Community Group with church. We were discussing the sermon on Luke 5:21-39, which discusses the destruction of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem (which happened in 70 AD) and the End of the Age. For all the expected doom and gloom it was an encouraging passage as we discussed it. One thing from the sermon that resonated with me this morning was that little-d ‘destruction’ points to big-D ‘Destruction’; that is, specifically within the historical context the destruction of the Temple points to the Destruction prophesied about concerning the End of the Age. We, like the original Jewish hearers, tend to make our little-d destruction into big-D Destruction. Things in the present tend to take on cataclysmic proportions in our minds. When awoken constantly from what I hoped would be a good sleep, all I could think of was that I was tired and I didn’t deserve this.

But what I fail to remember is the big picture. If I understood that all the little destruction I deal with in life fits under a much larger umbrella, the little incidents — like getting a poor night’s sleep — would take proper dimensions and not make me into the Morning Monster feeling entitled and that everyone must bend to my wishes for a good night’s sleep. Because I obviously love Ezra more than my sleep but at the moment of being re-awoken I fail to respond with sympathy and grace but out of self-entitlement — all of which means that functionally I’m loving myself more than my son. Mothering is hard work and exhausting at this stage and it would be lovely to always sleep well. But in the midst of my little-d destruction of sleep, I pray that I would be able to see it for what it really is and learn little by little how to communicate the gospel of grace to my son, even when it means I’m bleary-eyed from wakefulness.

This entry was posted by Ashley on Wednesday, February 18th, 2009 at 2:15 pm. This entry was tagged with Living the Gospel, motherhood. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.