While My Baby Cries...

So Gideon is going nuts right now because Courtney is trying to get him to lay back down and go to sleep on his own, no rocking, no holding, etc. She's being a wonderful wife and saying that I can just go ahead and go back to sleep, but it's hard to sleep with a baby that you love screaming in the other room. So, I guess that I figured I would come be with You and when buddy boy finally falls back asleep, I'll go cuddle up to my adorable but certainly frustrated wife.

So I'm not sure what's going on tonight, but yesterday I felt close to You when I wrote, now this early morning I feel far. Most of the times that I get up at odd hours to talk I can feel special movements of Your Spirit, this morning I get only faint whispers. I feel a lot of guilt this morning, from not helping with Gideon, to the obligations of tennis keeping me from being fully present at teaching meeting last night, to my non-detail-oriented self not paying attention to details and continually following up with AMBS. Pile on top of that the stress of teaching and the perhaps final week of tennis and the monster cookie from the Brew last night and my stomach is a mess right now.

I keep having this problem lately. I'm pretty sure of what I want from You, and my only way of gauging our relationship is whether I get it or not. I want to win tennis matches, and my mood and desire for devotion varies according to whether we win or not. I want my baby to stop crying so my wife can sleep (I've prayed for Your calming Spirit fifteen times now). And as Gideon continues to cry, I want to ask, "Where are You? I'm calling! Can You freaking not hear me?"

But that's all stupid. Babies have to learn to go to sleep on their own, and parents have to go through the difficult trials of teaching that. Why am I asking You to make it go away? Because I want things made easier for myself. I certainly need rest, and so does Courtney, and dealing with these things right now keeps us far away from rest. Our lives are often so scrambled during tennis season, we desire some peace. With the baby crying, there isn't a lot of peace. And very little sleep.

Can You make a greater good from all this craziness? Every time he stops wailing for a second I get hopeful, ready to explode into a praising spirit (which makes it all the more frustrating when he explodes into cries again). But the continual hope, the continual belief without fulfillment, that gets very painful. It starts to make me feel like not hoping and becoming cynical, and that is the opposite of faith.

That's where I'm at with tennis season as well. I have, we have all had in the tennis program, a lot of hope through the year. Our greatest fear is that our hope will be denied at the last second. Lord, allow our hope to come to fulfillment. Allow our work to be blessed. Continue to use our experiences, both good and bad, to draw us close to You. My heart is desperate within me. And yet I can't claim to know all of Your ways and how You are shaping situations for our good and for our growth. And therefore I only have one thing to cry:

Lord, have mercy on me!