"For God did not give us a spirit of cowardice..."

July 13, 2009 by Rieshy

2 Timothy 1:7

I can hear the rhythmic breathing of my 3 year old. Smell his warm skin next to me, feel his heel kick me in the stomach. He's gotten in bed with us again.

I feel I should carry him back to his bed but I'm too sleepy to get up, and it is so comforting to have him there. Until he kicks me in his sleep for the 3rd time and steals my pillow. Not to mention lying between my husband and my 3 year old is like lying between two electric heaters going full blast. I scoop him up and redeposit him in his bed. He doesn't wake up, merely snuggles down into his own pillow.

I get back in bed. An hour later I hear a cry. It's not the 3 yo but the 18 mos old. He is standing in the corner of his room inexplicably holding a nerf gun bullet and a piece of paper. I scoop him back into his bed, pry the objects out of his hands and lay next to him for a while. He smells different than the 3 year old but still warm and sweet and round. He too generates a lot of heat. I head back to bed.

I'd love to regularly sleep all night without interruption. Occasionally, when everyone is well, I get to. It's always a treat. However it is not without cost. When I wake up and realize that I've slept all night there is the long walk to the boy's room to check on the "Littles".

Anyone who has had an ill loved-one can surely relate. Will the curve of their back be rising and falling? Will the bedroom be filled with the soft sounds of sleep? Will they be alive? Before the bedroom door is opened my husband says it reminds him of Schroedinger's Cat.

June 5th of 2008, when I went into Jack's room to wake him up he was having a seizure. He was laying on his back rigid, eyes crossed. When I lifted him he suddenly collapsed and became hypotonic, his eyes told me he could understand me but he couldn't respond.

When the paramedics tested his blood sugar levels they wouldn't register. The E.R reading was 18. Yet today he is healthy and growing and smart and he is my love. Why didn't he die? Why isn't he brain damaged? I don't know. Other children don't make it. Those children were all just as sweet and as round and as beloved to their mommas as Jack is to me. Many of their mothers; great, conscientious, knowledgeable, responsible, loving, caring mothers, went into their child's bedrooms just a few minutes too late.

I don't have pat answers to why some children are "spared" and some are not. I do know it isn't because God loves me, my husband or Jack more than someone else. I do know that I wasn't somehow more "deserving". There is nothing like past loss to illustrate that point very clearly.

If merit had anything to do with avoiding tragedy then life is actually more confusing than not. The hymn comes to mind "I Know Not Why" .