Held in loving arms

Good morning.

My husband and I must each have clocked up thousands of hours rocking our babies through the night over the past eight years. These are hard, weary hours, when it’s easy to switch into panic mode, as tomorrow’s to-do list insists itself to the front of your mind. They can also be lonely hours, although I heard recently about the Norbertine sisters, an order of nuns in California, who wake up every night to keep a “motherhood hour” vigil, praying for parents up with their children. What a beautiful gift of prayerful upholding.

These are the hours when our children’s deep dependence on us is most clear, however independent they want to be during the day. My middle daughter’s catch phrase, when she was a toddler, was “I doing it all my by itself”. With darkness comes the longing for loving arms to settle into, a willingness to capitulate to being helped, and so these are precious and tender hours as well.

When I think back across seasons of darkness in my own life – times of grief, fear, and uncertainty – my experience of the presence of God is very like this: a sense of being tenderly, closely held in loving arms. These painful seasons are the times when my armour of self-reliance cracks open, when I stop trying to do it by myself, and I am open enough to feel the peace of the spirit. Looking back, they are times of deep spiritual comfort for which I am grateful. My prayer today is for everybody currently in a season of darkness. May you feel upheld in love, and experience the peace of the spirit.

Thank you, friends.