Sunday Sanctuary

There are prints beside the crib, crop circles in the carpet nap in the shape of mother's soles. I'm up with the baby again, rocking, rocking, rocking.

I hear them as real voices, the books and the Good Mothers scolding that she's beyond old enough to sleep through the night. They're right, of course. We enable one another, Lydia and I, to do what's easy. She likes to nurse; I like to sleep. A dream-feed in the dark hours is easy for us both, mother and babe, and the inevitability of a habit to be broken is nothing compared to the immediate promise of quiet darkness. We've shared this body for the scope of her life on earth, and the gathering of the baby back to my person is natural. 

Those voices have hushed somewhat over my 2683 days of being someone's mother. That number almost sounds sizable until compared to the great host of maternal souls vying for position in my head, jockeying to win out in theory, in philosophy, in method. The voices are quieting, I'm content to say, by an overwhelming peace. I've peace in my soul that mothering children (and loving others in ANY way) is less bullet-point method and much more grace and love. It's not always soft smushy love like it sounds like in a typed paragraph. So often I find myself stumped again, and seeking advice from family and friends and Google et.al. (And how does that saying go? "God's address is at the end of my rope?") But rocking a baby in her darkened nursery is right because it's right: primal, natural, and yes, easy.

It is hallowed ground.

When the alarm goes off to prompt my waking, the alarm I SET and adjusted the volume on in an effort to begin my day aright, I sleep through it. I get up out of bed, turn off the alarm, and return to my warm cotton cocoon IN MY SLEEP. Yet when one of the Dear Ones calls my name, even ONCE, I am at their bedside, bleary and fuzzy, no matter the hour. 

So HOW does God call out to me?  

He uses his Dear Ones, and their easy blessings and their hard blessings and it's all blessing. So I might try for a nap today, but the desire for my own things on my own terms is, at least for now, overshadowed by the unexpected, unplanned-for gifts of grace I've gotten at the hands (and budding teeth) of the smallest one. In the middle of the night, God calls me by the the name He gave me.