I\u2019ve spent the last two nights in a bed over-crowded with little bodies.\u00a0 The annual spring storms have driven them into my bed with a mixture of thunder crashes and howling winds.\u00a0 The air rumbles and the wind cracks and the children snatch up their pillows, fling open their doors, race down the long hallway and clamber up into our bed.\u00a0 Their father and I speak not a word, just reposition ourselves to make room for just one more until there is hardly a space left for us to squeeze into.\u00a0 He stretches out his arm over the tops of\u00a0 all those small heads, and intertwines his fingers in mine as we both drift back to sleep.<\/p>\n
We are safety to them.\u00a0 How heroic we must be in their small eyes.\u00a0 There is no tempest, villain, or imaginary beast which cannot be kept at bay by the magic of mom\u2019s bed.\u00a0 There is magic in those sheets and pillows which soothes sick tummies and smooths worried brows.\u00a0 Our job is their safety, and they trust us to do it well.<\/p>\n
God, in His wisdom and cleverness, designed it this way.\u00a0 It is obvious in the perfect fit of my body curled up around theirs.\u00a0 No matter the child, they always seem to fit just so.\u00a0 I listen to their contented sighs and their even breathing as the storms rage outside and I envy them.\u00a0 What I would have given to know the peace they know so easily.\u00a0 The knowledge of safety and protection is a right of childhood, but once it is lost, it is not easily regained.\u00a0 Once fear has crept into the mind, it doesn\u2019t easily leave.<\/p>\n
I had this once, and lost it.\u00a0 I thought that I would never again feel safe in the dark.\u00a0 But I lay in my bed, surrounded by little slumbering bodies\u2026their father\u2019s fingers stroking mine, and I sigh contented sighs.\u00a0 This is God\u2019s plan; it is so obvious to see.\u00a0 In calming their fears and quieting their worries, I somehow reach back and caress the face of the girl I used to be.\u00a0 The small fearful child who still lives in me learns from my children about believing in a parent\u2019s love.\u00a0 I learn from them about how a Father\u2019s protection feels, about the warm security which covers them. I learn to curl up trustingly and listen to my Father\u2019s voice.\u00a0 Certainty and peace are the right of a child.\u00a0 We only have to learn to trust, and there they are.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I\u2019ve spent the last two nights in a bed over-crowded with little bodies.\u00a0 The annual spring storms have driven them into my bed with a mixture of thunder crashes and howling winds.\u00a0 The air rumbles and the wind cracks and the children snatch up their pillows, fling open their doors, race down the long hallway […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1979,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n