Sometimes it’s the epitome of that feeling of being watched. You are not your own anymore.
You have that Not You inside you, literally there in a tangible way that if we just invented the right kind of scan they’d be able to locate it.
A soul scan.
The unseen aren’t nonexistent, just viewed with special eyes.
I can tend to that place in me, or abandon it like a garden and weeds grow over the Light.
It’s my choice.
Scraggly tough roots twist and spin and threaten to squeeze that place out of me.
There’s something about sleep deprivation and colic that entirely perplexes me. They make this life so wholly impossible feeling, all the *anything* gets snuffed out and put aside and – not tended to – that I find myself asking why sleep deprivation and colic were “invented” in the first place. Why not just make them not exist? Why does God choose to make it so hard to keep up all relationships, including the one with Him? I ask God to help her feel better and she does and then I get angry when it only lasts an hour. Or a day.
My expectations expose a deep sense of entitlement that bothers me worse than anything else. Why do I think I deserve anything?
I feel like I need to go to each and every one of you that ever thought I was a strong person and apologize. Sorry I fooled you! After all that I’ve been through I’m sitting here with weeds overgrown on my Light. I owe Jesus more letters and phone calls than all of you combined. My Trust in God has been fractured and I struggle to do the work it will take to repair it and yet sit fully aware of it all. And then I just decide I need a nap.
Like a broken bone it seems that Trust is the slowest to heal. I want instant healing. Impatience rears its ugly head again.
Our family has been through so much even just recently that I sometimes just stare off into space and wonder what to do.
Survival mode can be very lonely.
{ 16 comments… read them below or add one }
you just spilled my soul into a post. you’ve made conscious what I’ve been desperately trying to wrangle and grasp and name. this wild need in me to be given, to be answered, to be appeased. maybe I feel like I deserve to have the peace that eludes me because I try so hard to give that peace to others. why do I not understand that you can’t “good deed” your way to grace, to deliverance? sometimes when you’re sitting in the dark, at the bottom of the hole, the Light is just too far to try to reach. maybe that’s exactly when we need the Light the most. love you.
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Arianne Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 4:24 pm
@Tricia, it is when we need it most. I also think we forget it’s right inside us, not actually far away or at the end of a tunnel or anywhere. Right here. And I’ve been avoiding talking about this for 2 months, love. I get ya.
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Oh it can, and I am often in that place and while my eyelids droop this very moment, I can also see the hope at the end of this tunnel, and all the work it feels like it will take to get to Him, to Pull the weeds… No it seems like it will be work but it’s not going to be. Just say “hi”, and “help!”, and he’s there. He’ll carry you thru the rest. Of course I count on you to remind me of this next time I can’t see (or feel) it, k?
Steph
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Arianne Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 4:25 pm
@Adventures In Babywearing, you are right, it so isn’t work. Why do I keep believing that lie? I can gurgle out words before falling under water again and that’s all it takes.
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Sleep deprivation changes a person into someone she can’t recognize. It is a chemical change in the body that can’t be controlled. It’s not like you’re choosing to be in this state -
We all deserve to have peace – perhaps the Light can’t penetrate right now because you are feeling so badly about yourself – your question, “Why do I think I deserve anything?” really affected me – of course, you are deserving – but we can’t be deserving because of righteous things or activities which we do – we’re deserving because we are Abba’s daughters -
Maybe it would be more helpful to you in your desolate state (and I know, I have been there, and return there often) – to just open up your arms, symbolically and/or literally, and surrender to God, telling Him that you are fragile, and tired, and need Him – instead of hurting yourself more by repeating to yourself how undeserving you are – I think He will fly to you then – you write about “doing the work to repair it all”, when there is no work to do except to fall into God – and to let Him carry you -
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Arianne Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 4:34 pm
@Janet, thank you for these lovely words. And you are right about the “deserving” – I guess what I meant by that was why do I keep having thoughts like “I deserved this but instead I got that.” or “After all I’ve been through I deserved x y z.” As if I’d come to the end of suffering and in my oh-so-lacking human wisdom, decided I was done. The winnowing and the sharpening has always come out of suffering with me, and I in my weariness I just wanted to have it easy for awhile. But I have no ‘right’ to that in this life – does that make sense?
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Janet Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 10:55 am
Yes, it makes sense – you are very weary and want an end to it – and although you don’t have the “right” to choose when the suffering will end and a new phase of rest will begin, since our lives are in God’s hands, you certainly have a right to wish for a time of ease – I know that God understands this wish -
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Dear God,
I pra
Dear God,
I pray that you will touch this new baby, and comfort her. May she somehow, in an inexplicable way, sense your touch and Spirit. Comfort her body, mind, heart, and soul. May your holy “rest” descend upon her.
I pray for this distraught, tired mommy, who needs a good Shepherd to carry her. May she be blessed by your being present even when she can’t “feel” your presence. Let her know how much you love her, how tenderly you wait for her, and wait upon her in her need.
I pray that all who live in this dear home may be blessed to overflowing. And that they may all be able to say, “as did Mary, “Be it unto your handmaiden as you have said.” And, also, “Even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.” He is with us in all things. Thank you, Lord, that in you, we may find rest.
D
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Arianne Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 4:36 pm
@kingfisher, gorgeous. Thank you so much. xoxo
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You know I’m here with you. I understand. I feel you.
I’m so exhausted and Ryan is leaving for the week and so I’m anxious even if I think I shouldn’t be…
and so when my eyes are burning with tired and I am bone weary and she fusses and the boys are nuts and and and, I really only have prayers like hoarse whispers-half words. And I have sisters like you. I can just think of you and feel known in some kind of kindred way and then I remember grace and that He does not have clocks of time like we do or tallies of my prayers. And then I forget again, like my last post, and that’s because of my perfectionistic thoughts and then, like Steph said, you remind me and then I’m lighter because there is just so much love in the midst of all the dark and hard.
These babies of ours…they leave us asking WHY so much crying and so little sleep? And I guess….why not? Why would He not see that we are warrior mothers just right for these troubled ones? Sometimes I really really wish He thought less of me….but I suppose that’s silly. Already, all the thousands of lessons from all the hard things have added up to make us people who are kinder to the world.
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Arianne Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 4:53 pm
@Heather, oh you are so spot on. I have known this, as do you, since having special needs kids. We talk about our difficult baby girls but there are the other high needs ones waiting in the wings for mama too. I think I need to remember the “why not me?” way more often. Love you. xo
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I can’t breathe much more than the prayers of all the mothers: Help and Thank You. They’re ours because of these moments and you keep surviving, my luv, we’ll keep praying. I’m holding you up in my prayers, before my heart, lighting a candle tonight with your name whispered over it and Jesus is enough.
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Arianne Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 5:01 pm
@Sarah@EmergingMummy, thank you and you know I felt it. xo
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Oh I have been there! I have! And now, it’s not the same, but I’m so very sleep deprived with my year old baby girl, she wakes five times a night to nurse, and I work full time with three other kiddos, and am So. Tired.
I’m not sure what you’ve tried, but my colicky baby turned out to be having food intolerences. REmoving the offending foods helped SO MUCH! Easiest to bet on are dairy and chocolate.
ALso, really a game changer, Baby Probiotic Drops. They turned my babe around completely, and are so good for their immune systems too. Hang in there.
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Arianne Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 5:02 pm
@Maggie Mayb, oh honey hang in there yourself!! Yes I cut out dairy and chocolate (sob!) and am doing the probiotics. Since the diet changes things are better but still epic hard (just tells ya how bad it was before!). We’ll get there, right? xoxo
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I’ve walked that path. Sending you endurance, strength, wisdom, peace, and the perspective to be gentle with yourself. It’s so. so. hard. I had hardcore sleep deprivation for years with my last 3, and that combined with ppd, anxiety, & a lonely marriage almost killed my soul. I was so far from God, and really just surviving. It was a season for me. I hope it’s a short season for you. Grateful to hear from your heart. *HUG*
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Arianne Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 5:03 pm
@Frelle, this is the first time I actually don’t see PPD and anxiety down the road for me. Had it with every other baby. Another thing I forgot to be grateful for. xoxo
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I believe my soul was forever changed due to sleep deprivation when I had a tiny infant who would not stop crying and who could not learn to sleep for longer than 30 minutes at a time. I don’t understand why some of us have to go through that while others have babies sleeping through the night at just a few weeks old.
There are other things I don’t understand either. Lots and lots of things I don’t understand and that can take me to a dark, untrusting place. But I know, my heart truly knows, that He is in control and He is for us, and He will not abandon us. He is there. And He always will be. Praying He will allow you a glimpse of Him beside you, through it all.
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I can not leave a comment that equals what has already been written. But I can not stay silent after reading this.
So often you take the words of my heart, the words you didn’t know were there, and give them light.
This is one of those times.
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The other night I could NOT get Bea to go to sleep. The nights where Wade works late are hard for me because I can’t get her to sleep at night (she is SO frustrated because she wants the boob and won’t sleep on me). I ended up rocking her until 4AM- kids woke up at 6AM, and Wade didn’t get home until 7AM (and then of course he needed to go to bed). It took me back to the days of Colic with Capri where although I didn’t have other children to take care of- the late nights of rocking, how alone I felt etc… all came rushing back. I realized how traumatized I was by those months. All those feelings came rushing back that night. I got hopeless- feeling like this will happen EVERY NIGHT, and my LIFE IS OVER and I CAN’T DO THIS ANYMORE. Called husband and cried and he talked me off the ledge (or brought me back up). I feel like colic is the silent struggle and no one talks about the challenges (just like PPD, which often goes along with this Colic thing). I love what you said here, and I hope that her days of non-Colic start to out number the days of Colic, and I hope and pray that the bonding continues with Riv- so that even in the moments you feel all alone- you can love on her through her pain and you guys can get through this together. Love you Sister- hoping these moments don’t seep in deep, and are soon forgotten and not traumatizing.
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I feel like you have just opened up my heart and soul and read it like a book. Like the first chapter of it.
I know how extremely lonely survival mode is, having lived it for too long myself on more then one occasion (which is tough for me to admit actually).
You are in my prayers and thoughts. Love you. I hope it gets better for you soon.
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Love your blog ! you are right and i agree with you. The unseen aren’t nonexistent, just viewed with special eyes. Thanks for sharing your ideas and thoughts, i like your blog and bookmark this blog for further use thanks again….
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You do know, right that the nap, the living without KNOWING things are repaired or right – that’s the trust?
So much love…
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A soul scan – yes, we all need those don’t we. Thank you Jesus for lying down over me as they take the image….
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i get it. too much. <3
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