It was another night of lying on the floor in the dark, my arm raised awkwardly through the cot so my daughter could hold my hand against her face, her favourite (and seemingly only) way to fall asleep. How many minutes had we been like this now? Five? Ten? Twenty? You start to lose track of time when lying still for so long, night after night after night, kept awake only by the ache in my hips reminding me of the need to do more exercise.
Initially I would use this time to mentally plan my to-do list for the evening: clean the kitchen; pack away the toys; reply to those emails; wash my hair; if I’m lucky, have a cup of tea and restart my learn-to-knit project. But the will to do any of these things would slowly ebb away, replaced instead by the repeated question – Is she asleep yet? – the frustrated plea – Please go to sleep! – and finally the desperate prayer – Lord, please make her go to sleep!
On the nights I was feeling particularly down on myself, my thoughts would turn to all the what-ifs, should-haves and whys.
What if we had moved her out of our bedroom earlier?
I should have put more effort into helping her self-settle.
Why can’t I tolerate more crying?
This is all my fault.
When I’m lying in the dark with only my thoughts to keep me company (and the heavy breathing of my thankfully other sleeping child), it’s easy for them to shame spiral into all sorts of troubling places. Places that only lead to frustration, despair and self-pity.
Now, the point of this reflection is not to compare sleep techniques or analyse where I went wrong or what I could do to change things. There’s a place for that, (and if you’ve got tips for me feel free to leave them in the comments), but it’s not my purpose here.
Instead, I want to share a different question I’ve been asking myself at night recently, and through that, what God has been teaching me in this season of difficult and broken sleep.
The question came to me just recently during a short holiday my family took to the Blue Mountains, which involved the kids sleeping in travel cots. Unable to do our usual routine of my hand on or under her face, I came up with the compromise of having palm-to-palm contact with my daughter through the mesh walls of the travel cot. Not quite as comforting as skin-to-skin touch, but it was the best I could do to maintain the physical contact I knew she needed in order to fall asleep.
As I lay there, feeling her sweaty little hand pressed against mine, the question popped into my head:
Why does she insist on touching me, holding me, every night to go to sleep?
The answer came almost immediately.
Because you are her safe place, and this is how she feels loved.
I knew this of course, but for some reason it was a breakthrough moment for me in seeing beyond the frustration of our nightly ritual to the beauty and tenderness of the connection we share. For while I have tried to introduce other rituals of connection to help my daughter sleep at night – like having special stuffed toys to cuddle, drawing an imaginary heart on her hand, and instituting bedtime prayers, songs and liturgies – the fact is, for the moment at least, sleep to her is separation. Separation from me, her safe space. And so the physical touch I sometimes dread each night is, for her, a reassurance of my closeness and love. A reassurance she needs to be able to pass peacefully into that strange state of sleep.
As I lay there, pondering these things and feeling a little more empathy for my daughter rise in my chest, it brought me to thinking about how even as adults, sleep doesn’t always come naturally (at least in my experience – my husband differs on this!) While the shape of our night-time fears and terrors may change with age, the worries of tomorrow, regrets of yesterday and burdens of today can so easily plague our mind, robbing us of the peaceful rest we desire and need.
And while we may have all sorts of creaturely comforts and sleep hygiene habits that help us in these moments (all good things!), perhaps what we really need is to know that someone is holding our hand too. Someone who loves us, and whose love is never in doubt, both while we sleep and in sleepless nights too.
It is a wonder to me that we have a God who does not need sleep himself, but who lovingly grants rest to his beloved creatures.
Two verses that I have often called to mind during my own sleepless nights come from the Psalms. These particular psalms are songs of David that speak of times of trouble, of being pursued by enemies, of needing relief from distress, but ultimately of trusting God in the midst of adversity. Of being able to sleep in peace and safety with the knowledge that God is sovereign and he sustains.
I lie down and sleep;
I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.
I will not fear though tens of thousands
assail me on every side. (Psalm 3:5-6)In peace I will lie down and sleep,
for you alone, Lord,
make me dwell in safety. (Psalm 4:8)
Like David, I can fall into peaceful sleep knowing that the Lord sustains me, that he is my safe place, that he holds me by the hand. As David says in a different psalm,
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast. (Psalm 139:9-10)
And when I am tempted to not believe these truths, when I am tempted to wonder if these promises of Scripture are mere words with nothing behind them, I can remember three things:
1. God demonstrated his love by sending his Son into the world to die in my place.
2. God proved his power by raising Jesus from death to life.
3. God gives his presence now as he dwells within me by his Spirit.
Love, power, presence.
Aren’t these the very things my daughter craves at bedtime? To know that my love is still with her, even in the separation of sleep. To feel protected by my strength and power as her mum, that nothing will harm her in the night. To have the assurance of my presence, which for right now, means lying next to her and holding her face.
The needs my almost two-year old daughter has are the same needs that I have at a heart level, a soul level. And I have a God who meets those needs in abundance.
So next time I’m lying in the dark as my daughter holds my hand to her cheek, instead of dwelling on how to fix her sleep issues or worrying about the problems of tomorrow, I’ll whisper these words of truth to myself and to her:
For I am the Lord your God
who takes hold of your right hand
and says to you, Do not fear;
I will help you. (Isaiah 41:13)
This article was first published on Kat’s Substack site.