Bedtime-Evidence of Grace

Since our little daughter has come to us it has been a long road.  There have been many dark days.  Days that she pushes us away.  It's common for children from trauma to not know how to accept good love, or to test you.  It's as if she has a constant question of will you still love me if I do this.

Early on in her time with us bedtime was rough.  She shared a room with her sisters and our routine included reading bedtime stories, then turning out the light, praying as a family and then I would sit by each child singing them three songs they picked.  Her first night in our home she cuddled under her covers and sighed deeply as I rubbed her back and sang.  It was obvious it brought her comfort.  Comfort she probably hadn't experienced before.  But soon she started fighting against it.

Soon her routine became a game of saying no she wasn't going to pray.  Of crawling to the furthest corner of her bed and saying, "No, Don't sing to me and don't rub my back!"  At first I thought she was learning boundaries, and said, "Okay honey if you don't want me to rub your back that's your choice, it's your body." But then if I left the room she'd scream and cry that we hated her.  Or she'd scream that she hated me. If I returned to the room ready to sing she'd rush back to the corner refusing songs. This "game" drained me.

I told her plainly, "I know you love to be sung to, and I know you love having your back rubbed, and I know you don't hate us.  So you are going to stop making the bad choice to push us away.  You are going to make a good choice to have your songs when I first sit by you." And I did have to stick by that.  So if she completely thrashed and refused then she didn't get songs that night.  I wasn't going to keep participating in her game.

She tested it.  The next night she rolled herself in a ball and screamed at me, "I hate you and I don't want songs!"  I thought of the way Jesus stepped down to earth.  The way he became a man and walked in flesh and met me in my sin and distress.  I stooped down and picked up this angry hurting child.  I held her and sang her songs, and with in seconds her screams of "I hate you," stopped as she relaxed and listened to the songs.

Why did she constantly test?  Why did she constantly try to push me away? I kept having to remind myself that we do the same.  We push God away, we test his faithfulness, we say we don't need him, but he's there, loving us all the same.  I cried out to God.  "Help me to be there to love her, because honestly she's hard to love right now.  Help me to not just see this angry, rude child who is hurting my family and disrupting my peace.  Help me to see her through your eyes."

As I prayed I saw this broken little girl.  I saw the hurts and abuse piled high on her shoulders.  I saw the fear of loving someone, only to be abandoned or hurt by them.  I saw her deep desire to be loved, but her deep uncertainly of it's safety.  I prayed over her, and I rocked her and I sang.

Now almost 2 years later each night she jumps into her bed and cuddles up at my side.  When prayer comes to a close she wants me to tuck in her into her "nest" and I lean down close looking into her big dark eyes and I sing.  I sing "Jesus Love You", "I'll Love you Forever" and "You are my Sunshine" which we changed the words to.  It now goes "You are my sunshine, my little sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey, you'll always know dear how much I love you, and no one will take you away. The other night dear when I was sleeping I had a dream that you were adopted, and I was so happy, so very happy, because it's true and you're mine!"  She looks back into my eyes and sings along, with shinning eyes and a smile across her little face.  Then she cuddles down under her weighted blanket we made together and drifts off to sleep listening to praise music.


Yet, it's not perfect every night or every day.  There's plenty of times if the days been hard I see her start to curl into a ball in the corner of her bed.  I see her angry dark eyes peer out at me, and I think, do we have to go back to this?  Do we have to do this again? I think of the Israelites wandering in the desert and how they kept grumbling against God.  They kept going through their cycles of belief and un-belief, of reliance on him and pushing him away.  I thought of myself.  How often do I cling to Jesus, stay strong in my time of prayer and reading his word and then start to slowly let other things take that place. We are all the same really.  We all go through our cycles.  I have to remember the grace that God shows me and offer that Grace to her.

The journey to peaceful bedtimes has been long and hard.  When I think of where we've come it's evidence that God is at work.  He's in the healing process, little by little he's bringing beauty where there was once only hurt.

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