Waiting for Morning

I hear the pitter-patter of his sleepy feet before his voice wakes me. I don’t need to look at the clock on my bedside table. I know it reads 3 A.M. This is his waking time. His squinty eyes and slurred speech confirm that he’s not rested, but according to the odd rhythm of my three-year-old’s sleep pattern, daylight should have already arrived.

He tugs at my arm. “Is it morning yet?”

“No buddy,” I whisper, trying not to wake his exhausted Daddy beside me. “It’s still dark outside.”

A shrill moan slips from his lips. “WHEN will morning be here?”

“When the darkness disappears,” I remind him .

Reluctantly, I roll from bed and grab his slender hand. Like every other night, we walk back across the hallway to the room where his big brother sleeps. I gently nudge my littlest boy into the bottom bunk, pull his John Deere blankie to his chin, and kiss him goodnight again.

“Lay by me and pray for me,” he pleads. I’m so tired.

“Please, Mommy, just one minute.”  I crawl carefully into the tight dark quarters and place my hands on his head of tousled hair. I breathe deeply his sleepy smell and remind myself that this child won’t be little forever.

“Dear Lord,” I murmer so as not to wake my firstborn snoring above us. “Wrap your mighty arms around Joshua and keep him safe. Flood this room with your angels and command them to stand guard over this boy, your treasure. May Joshua grow as Jesus did “in wisdom, and stature, and favor with YOU and with man…” I speak softly the scripture that comes to mind. I rub his warm bony back. I listen to the steady pulse of his breathing. I try not to think about my own cramped legs wedged into the crack between his bed and the wall. I whisper quiet assurance that morning will, indeed, arrive.

And I empathize with my young son’s impatience.

“When will morning be here?”   I’ve asked the same thing of my Heavenly Father too many times to count…

As I lay curled on the bathroom floor after our tiniest child had slipped from my womb into Heaven’s arms. As I paced the floor with a screaming baby night after night after night. As I opened the envelope revealing yet another rejection letter Your writing doesn’t meet our needs… As the abrupt truth of the email  paralyzed my heart, “He’s left me for good this time. What am I going to tell the kids?”  As the unexpected phone call sent shockwaves through my untested faith, “You’re sister’s in the hospital.”   Darkness makes dawn seem SO FAR away.

In Linda Dillow’s classic book Calm My Anxious Heart, she wisely reminds us that walking by faith is difficult because we’re asked to believe what we can’t see. She writes, Faith is walking in the dark with God, holding His hand. Savor her insightful commentary on a familiar Bible story.  In the book of Exodus, we find the children of Israel camped by the edge of the Red Sea. It was night, pitch black except for the pillar of fire. God had placed between His people and the Egyptians. Can you imagine their fear? The screaming threats of the enemy filtered through the darkness. What would they do when dawn broke? Each mother hugged her child to her breast in fear that this would be their last night.


Who could have imagined the miracle that awaited them? Hidden in the text is
the tiny phrase, “All that night the LORD drove the sea back” (Ex. 14:21) While the Israelites were quaking in their boots, the miracle occurred “all that
night.” Because it was night, they couldn’t see what the “wind of God” was accomplishing on their behalf. God parted the Red Sea, and they walked on dry ground to freedom.


Perhaps your life is filled with darkness and you can’t see. Still, God is
working, just as He worked “all that night” for the Isrealites. The next day
simply manifested what God had done during the night. Do not forget, my friend,
that God works in the night of your life, too.

Joshua’s sluggish snores eventually bring my prayers to a close. Silently, I slip my hands out from under his sleeping head and trudge once more across the hall to the comforts of my own bed. The sky is still black, but the frogs and the crickets sing a rowdy song of hope beyond my window. They know morning is on its way. Or perhaps, they are watching the Creator of the stars work wonders in the darkness.

As for me, I’ll have to wait for morning.

The Overflow:  For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning. -Psalm 30:5