There will be no nap today.
The realization hangs heavy around my chest as I watch my plans evaporate. Some days, I’m ready to embrace the opportunity. Conscious of how quickly each stage of babyhood passes, I’m content simply to gaze at the little one folded into my arms. I watch as parted lips draw breath through a tiny “o.” It’s a quiet exchange only God could have dreamed up - the peace my children find in my arms, and the love that swells for them as we rest together in the stillness. But today, ugliness breaks through and instead of soaking in motherly affection, all I can access is bitter frustration. I know the invitation in this moment is to lay down my attachment to the to-do list, to stop clothing myself with accomplishments to prove I am worthy - even when those accomplishments are as meager as taking out the trash and sweeping the floor.
It’s a lesson I’m hard-pressed to learn, apparently, because God keeps giving me fitful sleepers. I’ve read every book there is on sleep, but after birthing two babies on opposite ends of the personality spectrum, all I can do is throw my hands up in the air and add naps to the list of life’s unfathomable mysteries. I think I’ll pencil it in right below the Trinity.
You are busy with many things.
Exactly, Lord, so why don’t you dispatch a saint or two to sing this kid to sleep?
Come to me, you who are labored and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Rest. Right. “Sleep when the baby sleeps.” Whoever came up with that sound advice had only one kid and a housekeeper.
Choose the better part.
What is “the better part” here? How is resting possibly going to help? Everything that needs doing will still be waiting, and I’ll have a baby to nurse and a toddler to entertain when we get there.
But who will you be when you get there?
And it clicks. Through a fog of sleeplessness, memories of my Ignatian training emerge. The phrase “cura personalis” comes into focus, and I begin to see all the ways I haven’t been practicing “care of the whole person.” The heavy shackles of my to-do list include the tasks necessary to care for everyone else. My own needs appear nowhere, as though I am a Superhero – or maybe just nonexistent. Things like “read a book,” “call a friend,” “have a cup of tea,” “take a shower” - these don’t make it onto the list. These, the lie goes, are selfish luxuries, privileges I let go of when I chose to be a mom.
You cannot serve from an empty vessel.
Oops.
Why do I so often forget that taking care of others requires that I be healthy and whole? Dancing to my favorite music, enjoying a hot cup of coffee, going for a run - these are gifts God has given me to recharge. Saying “no” to these is refusing to accept the graciousness of God. When I withhold the little things that bring me joy until I’ve completed my “daily requirements” list, I enslave myself to the “to-do” list. Taking time to relish the little joys of life is accepting the gift that is this world. It is taking God’s outstretched hand and bringing him into my day. It’s not that the list of things to do shrinks while I am otherwise engaged, but taking the time to nourish my soul at the banquet of gratitude means that when I do return to my tasks, I give out of fullness. Rather than labor as a starving slave, I am filled with the goodness of God, ready to overflow this graciousness as I go about my day.
God, like a mother putting her child to bed, wants to give me rest. I glance at my now soundly sleeping baby. Who am I to refuse?