I Sleepy

(Taken from an article I (Jeanne) wrote about 2 years ago when I first started discovering the deep need for a Sabbath in my life.)

When my 2-year-old son looked at me from the back seat with his ocean blue droopy eyes and said “Mamma – I Sleepy”.  It was his sweet but firm way of saying – enough is enough, no more errands, no more tasks, no more running around, I want to take a nap.  Every day his little body reaches its limit and he usually crashes hard into a 2 ½, and if I’m lucky 3 hour nap.  He knows when he just can’t take it anymore and he nestles into the corner of his crib and gives up to sleep. In those few short hours he is somehow replenished and refueled to scamper about for the rest of the day with boundless energy. Most of the time I hoard every minute of productivity that is available to me while Elijah is sleeping. I shift into my fastest gear possible so that I can fly through my never ending to do list.  Being an efficient and capable person has always been important to me. I tend to live at one speed – always moving.  I very rarely let myself switch into 1^st or neutral.  I am a doer.  I have been a doer all my life.  My mind is always moving, thinking about the next project, the next task, and the next thing that needs to get done.  My treadmill is in constant motion, which often keeps me from recognizing that like my son “I sleepy”.

Sometimes it’s the physical exhaustion that I avoid. I wait until my two week disposable contacts which I have tried to turn into two month extended wear fog up and begin to burn and itch because my eyes just want to shut and not be opened until 8+ hours of sleep.   Sometimes it’s a verbal fatigue. When I start to slur my sentences or confidently explain something with the wrong words and it ends up making no sense. This is always a dangerous one especially if I am speaking somewhere when I am over tired.  Often it comes out emotionally for me.  Usually I hit the wall of feeling buried in things that are late or need my attention and for some reason in the moment the only good response is to cry.  I don’t like living this way but I have somehow yoked myself to the lie that it’s not cleanliness, but productivity that’s closest to godliness.

My productivity has somehow seeped into every area of my life.  My friends will often begin their sentences with me by saying, “I feel like we haven’t talked in so long.”  My extended family will often be surprised about something that I am doing because I have not found the time to tell them what is happening in my life.  My husband and I will often have long conversations just to fill each other up on the events from the past week. People that I am ministering too often start their sentences with me by saying, “I know you are so busy…” and then they launch into their desire to talk or get together.  I quietly wince every time my life communicates to another person that my tasks and responsibilities and priorities don’t include them.  I know that they have subtly translated that my productivity is more important than our relationship.

I need to learn to stop sooner. To replenish.  To take nap’s more regularly.  So I decided to heed my son’s advice.  I curled up on the couch in the middle of the day, grabbed the soft red blanket from the basket in the corner, got my pillows just right, took my socks off because I can’t sleep when my sock are on and fell into an invigorating slumber.  I didn’t wake up until I heard Elijah’s voice start to project through his baby monitor.  “Mamma – I up”

My nap was wonderful.  Perfect in length.  I felt great when I got up.  I had a fabulous afternoon mindlessly playing with trucks and tractors on the floor with Elijah. We laughed and read books.  I taught him how to play hide and seek.  We took a walk in his big red wagon and stopped at a construction site so he could watch the tractors turn and move the earth around. We shared a meal together.  After dinner we went upstairs so Elijah could take a bath.  As he splashed around in his tub of mostly bubbles we traced the activities of the day. While he parrotted back to me our doings of the day I realized that it was the first time in a very long time that I had celebrated the Sabbath.  So I decided to teach my son about what we really did that day.  I broke it down toddler style why God created a Sabbath and how what we did that day was pleasing to God.  As Elijah filled up his toy boats with water he said “Sabot Mamma”.

A simple but superb memory was crafted into my mind that I will hold for as long as humanly possible.  Sharing a Sabbath with a two year old is about as good as it gets.

Some Similar Thoughts...

• Sabbath Saturday
• Sabbath Saturday
• Sabbath Saturday