A Mother's Prayer

Psalm 3:5 I lie down and sleep; I wake again, because the Lord sustains me.

I will not fear…

Psalm 4:1 Answer me when I call to you, my righteous God. Give me relief from my distress.

Psalm 4:8 In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone Lord make me dwell in safety.

I read these words of David this afternoon through tired eyes and asked the Lord for rest as my 10-day-old baby lies next to me and my one-year-old baby sleeps peacefully in her playpen with her sound machine lulling her to dream sweetly. The newborn fog settles gently over me and as I read these words, I thought about the mothers thousands of miles from me with little one year old babies and even ten-day old babies, fleeing the bombs and threats and fear of attack. My fog seems a little lighter now. I read over these words, these prayers to the Lord, and the exhaustion and anxiety I read them through I know is nothing compared to the moms just like me in Ukraine. Prayers and statements of faith pleaded through teary eyes, holding their babies tight, in the basement of a hospital. In a train station where everyone’s breath is one. In a home that is not theirs, with their baby sleeping in their arms while they lie awake, praying these words over and over. Not knowing what the next second looks like. My mom heart aches for theirs because I know that if they are like me, they want nothing more than their babies to be safe. They want nothing more than to be safe themselves so they can hold and raise and love their babies. We all live in unknowns, but theirs seems a little more dangerous than mine. I know my exhaustion is validated as I lie awake with my baby all through the night, but I also know that I lie in my own king size bed with no bomb threats overhead and noises of terror crashing through the night sky. These hard days of mine are days that Ukrainian mothers now dream of. My heart grieves for them, and I can’t begin to imagine how much greater our Father’s heart grieves. May my hard days not be a place for me to sulk and sit in thanklessness, but to pray for those whose days are harder than mine, to love where I can, to serve where I can, to give where I can.

I am reminded of Matthew 14 where Jesus hears of John the Baptist’s death and withdrew to a private place…I am assuming to mourn his friend and spend time alone with the Father. But when the crowds followed Him, He did not send them away or hide regardless of His own emotional state. He had compassion on them, He healed their sick, he fed all 5,000 of them, and dismissed them personally. Then he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray, probably to resume the personal mourning that had been interrupted. Jesus was having a hard day, yet He had compassion on the people who needed Him. On my hard days, let me follow the example of Jesus and put others before myself. Let me pray for others before I pray for myself. Let me love where I can, and Lord I pray, give me compassion and perspective to see beyond myself. No matter how hard my own hard is.

My heart prays these psalms over these mothers and their babies. Over the fathers who have given themselves to fight a war that they shouldn’t have to. My heart prays for justice, for mercy, for safety, for rest, for peace.

art credit: @saltandgoldcollection on Instagram