While trying to sleep train my daughter recently, I was struggling as I listened to her painful cries from the other room. She sobbed and screamed, angry that she couldn’t see me and feel me, longing for it to be different. As she cried, I cried: just wanting to go in and comfort her, take her in my arms and make her stop crying.
As I listened, it suddenly hit me. This is me, us, so often. We scream and cry in agony: hating where we are in life, longing for something different, longing for comfort and love. We feel completely alone. But there is Someone in the other room, in the same room actually, who sees every tear, hears every scream, feels every pain, and who longs to swoop in and pick us up in His arms and hold us close.
But sometimes we don’t learn so easily that way. Sometimes we need to learn our lesson in the dark, in the pain. So He waits: His eyes never leaving us, His ears never closed, His heart bursting with love. We may feel awful in the moment, even wish to die, but every test and lesson are planned so carefully and lovingly by our Father who loves us more than life itself.
