Perfected vs. Pampered

Bathed, fed, changed, swaddled, and nestled snug in her bed, Nora receives her goodnight kisses.  "Good night, Nora....we love you."  Dave turns on her little sheep that plays ocean sounds for her as I flick out the light.  We casually walk back to our room and turn on the monitor.  Feeling like proud parents since this little bedtime routine has been going on for a consistent 2 weeks, we give each other a smile.  And then it all begins.  There's a whimper and a cry.  In no time at all the crying escalates to a full blown scream in a matter of minutes.  Hmmmm.....

Trying not to get discouraged, we resume what we were doing.  "It's okay for kids to cry..." we tell ourselves.  Then our "casual" conversation turns silent for a bit and we both know what each other is thinking.

  "Should we go in there and get her?"

Already knowing our daughter's tendencies, we are fully aware that she just wants to be held.  And holding is good don't get me wrong, but during bedtime it can make for an interesting situation for future nights.  After that unspoken 5 minutes of screaming has passed, we go in to check on her.  We turn on the lamp, and stand by her crib.  Instant silence.  Instead of picking her up, we just tell her "You're alright.  It's time for bed and we want you to have a good night of sleep.  You're okay."  She doesn't seem to be convinced and begins to whimper again.   "Nora, you have food in  your belly, you smell all clean, and you are safe....now just go to sleep."  Somehow this quieted her enough for the night.  No more screams through the monitor...praise God.  

In this awakened tearful moment, I paused to notice a similar scene in my own life.  There was just something awfully familiar about how everything was playing out.  The sadness followed by tears....then screams...louder screams...the period of waiting...more crying...words of comfort...and then peace and....REST.  

This is a picture of me on my due date, September 8th.  My mom had just flown half way around the world the day before to stay for two weeks and I just could NOT wait for Nora to be born so my mom could spend time with her.  I may be smiling in this picture, but inside my heart was quite tumultuous.  For the next couple of days thereafter I wrestled with God in a way that looked similar to my daughter's tearful pleas.  As we proceeded to wait, every day that lingered forward made time with my mom slip away.  My sadness moved to "controlled" tears streaming down my face every now and then that I would quickly wipe away...ashamed that I wasn't trusting God's timing.  

In the continued waiting, my delicate tears that once lined the sides of my cheeks became more uncontrollable by the day.  In the insomnia that accompanied being 40 weeks pregnant, I found myself in the living room later that week at 3:00 am crying out like only a daughter would cry out to a parent that seems to be abandoning her.  Just as my daughter's screams proceeded to get louder, I felt as though my own anguish got stronger with each passing day.  

How could God not want my mom to spend the most time with her granddaughter?

How much longer am I going to have to wait?

THIS is why that bedtime scene felt so familiar.  I too found myself crying out to my Father just wanting him to come and answer my cries in the way I suggested to him.  In Nora's case, her cry was to be held.  Mine was to have my child asap.  Same thing...ages apart.  Humans have one thing in common no matter how old we are.  We think we know exactly what we need, when we need it, and we don't like to be uncomfortable.  And then to top it off, if there is anyone above us who has the power to pull off our request and they don't take our suggestion, we throw a fit.  

GUILTY AS CHARGED.

In my own wakeful moment then crying out to God at the peak of my unrest, I found myself flipping through both my Bible and journal for some sort of comfort.  My eyes fell on highlighted text I wrote just that past Sunday from a sermon titled "When God Doesn't Do What You Expect".  How fitting, huh?  It almost felt like a "such a time as this" moment because the date of these notes was September 8th...my due date.  I can't even begin to capture all of the beautiful truths embedded in that 40 minute lecture, but I'll note the main one that stood out to me.

God's love is not a pampering love, but a perfecting love.

He desires more for us to be sharpened, refined, tested and tried, then to be rescued from every trial.  While he has every ability to free us from earthly pain, how would we ever taste the joy of overcoming?  How would we ever know the pride in persevering?  How could we possibly grasp the fullness of being set free from bondage?  

Is it too hard of a statement to swallow that God doesn't hold us every time we cry?  What if we aren't given the "rescue" we desire and instead are left to be sustained only by his truths and his presence beside us?  Did it make us bad parents that we didn't run in and pick Nora up even after she had been crying?  Was it enough to stand beside her and comfort her with our words?  I'd say yes...it was enough.  For we as her parents saw beyond the tears and knew it would lead to better nights of sleep later on.  Likewise, God saw beyond my tears and knew it would lead to countless blessing.  An extra week to have a heart to heart with my mom.  Nora's birth on a date that my dad happened to be visiting my siblings in Virginia and didn't have to celebrate alone.  Two weeks for David to actually start his school year without substitutes.  And the inevitable...a faith milestone for me to grasp what it truly means to "wait on (and wrestle with) the Lord".  

In the wee hours of the morning as my red rimmed eyes skimmed through the Psalms, I came across one that could have stolen the words right out of my heart:

How long, O Lord?  Will you forget me forever?

How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I take counsel in my soul and have sorrow in my heart all the day?

...

BUT I have trusted in your steadfast love; 

my heart shall rejoice in your salvation.

I will sing to the Lord,

because he has dealt bountifully with me. -Psalm 13

May we surrender our expectations, and ASK for his sanctifying, perfecting, refining kind of love.  A love that allows momentary pain to achieve a greater joy. A pain that He allowed his own Son to endure to achieve the greater joy of our salvation.  

"More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." - Romans 5:3-5

"So we do not lose heart.  Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day.  For this slight momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.  For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal." - 2 Corinthians 4:16-18

She was worth the wait!