Arise

When you have little kids, you have to wake up a lot in the middle of the night, but the thing is you never really get used to it. Jack is sleeping through the night now, but for most of the past year, our nightly sleep has been divided into two or three parts. This is a very disorienting situation; especially when you are awakened in the middle of a deep sleep cycle. Most of the time when Jack starts his nocturnal crying, I don’t even remember getting out of the bed… I simply discover myself out in the hallway moving toward his bedroom. My sleepy hands feel like clubs or boxing gloves: totally incapable of fine motor skills. My head is usually swimming in some sort of limbo in between sleeping and waking and my eyes are just so heavy they won’t stay open for more than a second. One time a couple of months ago, I actually ran into the doorframe of my bedroom with my shoulder, which spun me around 180 degrees and propelled me into the hallway where I just kept on walking backwards to Jack’s bedroom.

That is how I usually wake up in the middle of the night, but a few weeks ago it was different. I was sound asleep in the bed when I heard it… Anna screamed! But she didn’t just scream, she screamed, “Daddy!!” this scream was punctuated by cries and shouts, but there weren’t many because as soon as that first syllable of “Daddy!!” broke the silence of our sleeping house, I was out of bed, on my feet and at my bedroom door, poised for whatever. It wasn’t the drowsy, zombie-esque response I usually give… I was like a man possessed. I didn’t know what I was about to find in her room, but my jaw was set and my fists were clenched. I was completely awake and completely ready for action… Now, as it turns out, Anna was crying because she thought she saw a black widow spider, which turned out to be a cricket, so all that was needed was for me to hold her, reassure her and tuck her back in.

This week, I’ve felt like Anna did that night… there have been so many problems and so much drama around here that I’m starting to freak out as if I’ve seen a black widow spider. It feels like every time I turn around we’re on the cusp of another crisis with no apparent solution! This has caused me to react in much the same way Anna did… I’m waking up in the middle of the night and crying for my Daddy to help me! My journal pages are filled with pleas for help! Sometimes that’s all you can do and on a couple of occasions, that’s all I’ve written or said or prayed, “Father, please help us.”

That’s why I was so pumped when I read Psalm 12 the other day. Verse 5 says, “Because of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy, I will now arise,” says the Lord.” When I read that verse I said, “Hey! That’s me! I’m weak! I’m completely needy! I need God Almighty to come down here and help me!” And He says, “I will now arise.” Whoa… That’s what I need; not solutions or wise plans, but God to help me. And just like I flew out of that bed and ran to Anna ready for whatever, He is now going to arise and come to my aid, even if it just to tell me that my black widow is only a cricket and tuck me back in.