Show Up Anyway

Dear Lord,

Please help me show up.  Please give me the patience to show up.  Please grant me the humility.

Patience is not now and never has been (and quite likely never will be) a virtue of mine.  I would love to be that patient person who can wait for what is to come, but some virtues seem to be the very antithesis to my character, and strive though I might, they feel so very far away.

And so when it is 2:00AM and 3:00AM and 4:00AM and my beautiful sweet little Mae is screaming her beautiful sweet little head off, mine starts to spin.  And not just the thoughts.  I think at one point my head might have actually spun around in circles out of frustration.

Here’s what I think normal people think during times like these.

“This is frustrating.  I’m exhausted and tired and I want to go to bed and will you please just fall asleep?  Now!”

And here are my thoughts.

“Oh my goodness, I will never fall asleep ever.  Ever.  Ever.  Each minute is turning into the next and I just simply cannot do this for hours more.  It’s dark outside.  If I go downstairs and call it quits, the day will last forever.  And Goosie is coughing in the other room, and TJ is snoring in the other room.  And Mae is sleeping peacefully on my shoulder until the second I dare to move.  And I am here.  Awake.  Awake!  I am the only person awake in the whole entire world and this is the worst thing that has happened to anyone ever in the history of the whole entire universe.”

My mind starts to spin, and I panic.  I remind myself that this is part of motherhood.  These are the long, gritty hours that will transform both of us into the human beings we are destined to be.  These are the hours that will keep her secure and me humble.  These are the hours that teach me to serve.

“Just pray,” I say.  There is nothing else to do, so just pray.

“Okay God.  Please help me be humble and patient.  And… Oh my goodness this is the worst thing ever!!”

I wrote recently for Mothering that the joys of motherhood are earned when we show up for the trials.  What I think I failed to mention, however, is just how hard it is to show up.

So Lord, when I don’t want to and I think I can’t and I feel like one more time might break me, and all I want to do is close my eyes and throw the covers over my head and block out everything, please help me show up anyway.

Please help me remember that the glory is in the anyway.  Help me remember that none of us want to be woken up all night or have our every word contradicted or our bodies leapt on.  But we do it anyway.  Because that’s what love does.

Love doesn’t listen to what it wants.  It doesn’t close its eyes and block out the inconvenient parts of our days.  It doesn’t take the good and leave the bad.  No.  Love understands its wants and its desires, and then it acts with an attitude of service anyway.

That’s the power of love.  When the rest of the world can turn away and turn out the lights and cover their ears, love doesn’t let itself.  It opens itself up to the other person.  It demands of itself to understand.  It makes itself take the next step, do the next needed task.

Love asks more of us.

And when I do not want to follow love.  When I want to follow self interest and my desires, please open my heart to love and help me show up anyway.

It’s not as easy as it sounds.  At least for me it’s not.