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Be Still





I am thinking about doing some posts this year about things I'm learning as I'm learning them. I'll still have those "crap, I spilled coffee everywhere" failure posts too, but I think these others might take up more of my blogging space.That said, I was reading Psalm 37, one of my go-tos, and had to stop at verse 7: "Be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him..."


No photo description available.Being still is not something I'm very good at. I am a person who feels very compelled to DO things, especially if I've made a list of things to do and am now currently checking those things off my list. I might sit for a minute, but then I'm up again doing something else. It's hard for me to just be still. It doesn't feel very productive.

Image may contain: 2 people, including Laura Lee, closeupBastian (my almost-2-year-old son) recently got a toddler bed and has honestly done really well with it. But since the New Years' fireworks scared the crap out of him, he has been scared to go to sleep alone without one of us holding his hand or rubbing his back until he's asleep. (Jeremy is often the one who does this because he's just awesome) But when I'm the one doing it, you can imagine that I'm not exactly super excited about that. We have things to do when the kids go to bed! Not only is it a reprieve and a bit of very welcome quiet, but there are dishes to do, lunches to make, books to read, shows to watch, laundry to fold, and the list goes on.

Nowhere on my mental checklist of things to do is "sit quietly in the dark for X number of minutes while son who needs comfort tries to go to sleep." I am in the middle of a great book and would like to get back to it, thank you very much. We have gone over this how many times, Bastian? The routine is the same. Expectations are the same!

Image may contain: 2 people, baby and closeupOh wait... you're not even two yet. And you don't care about my list. And you need your mom.

SIGH.

Be still.

The truth is he's been teaching me these lessons since he was born. While my daughter was so independent and didn't want to cuddle, Bastian craves touch. And since his first winter was rough with lots of sickness, we did a LOT of cuddling. I rocked him so often when I really wanted/needed to do other things. My arms got pretty strong from all the holding I did! But I got pretty frustrated and sometimes just mad. I felt like it wasn't fair of him to demand so much of me! What am I, your primary source of comfort or something?
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But I was also reminded that being still is not worthless. It's a time to focus, pray, meditate, and just be with whoever it is that needs me at the moment. To be patient and give space. To let him hold my hand tightly so the scary things don't seem so scary. And to let my list go and be a little more humble about what I think needs to happen when.
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So that's something I'm learning now. Not as gracefully as perhaps I could learn it, but it looks like I'll get a lot more practice ... (yay?) And I'll learn some big lessons about life from my toddler who is just fine as long as he's sure his parents are close.

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