The ebb and flow of sleepless nights

05/20/20
11:41 pm

My self-proclaimed rational distrust in the age around me causes me as a mother to sleep, as it would be called, with one eye open.
I sleep, often restlessly.

My son's share a room and it is a blessing. Simultaneously it's often a slight inconvenience--on varying levels. Lets just say there is a 10 year range of ages between the three-- the oldest 17 at the time of this post. [And that's it's own story.]

But I'll err on the side of it being a blessing. It must be the precise design of the creator to shuttle them all this way together, to mold and form something that would otherwise not be molded in them, for a purpose revealed beyond this frame of time. I must choose to believe that so I can sleep.

But back to my sleepless nights.
And while there are varying reasons, I'll relay one such episode here:

So as I mentioned, my son's share a room and the room door of my son's room is off-hitch. It protests stubbornly when trying to open or close the thing. It must be forced closed with its solidly fixed, yet somehow precarious hinges.
And each time they exit and enter anytime in the night (since we are painstakingly engaged in night training the youngest) it jolts me awake, with a heart stirring adrenaline to which possibly only a mother can relate.

This ease of wakefulness comes from the training mothers receive with the first infant waking when we arrive home with our new bundle of joy. I suppose I proceeded to learn Joy has many connotations in those early months. Weeping may endure for a night but Joy comes in the morning. I must say, Joy for one thing, was nursing a young one to sleep, and sleeping while he nursed. Yes,sleep...

Still later, this ease of wakefulness also comes from moments of betrayal that have caused me to question my competency as a God-fearing parent, by way of commonly defiant teens with access to devices that let too much of the world in. 

Yes, I use the digital prowess of family supervised accounts, shutting down the internet at a designated time, having mobile device turn in curfews, setting guidelines for mobile device use, etc. Still,  I am only one deterrent.

And sadly, some of these regulations and safety nets came after discoveries of access to content no God-fearing believer should entertain.

Sigh- let's just say all the strategy to save their eyes, hearts, and innocence can sometimes feel thwarted by the sheer intelligence, and determination, of these digital-aged kiddos to defy the rules. I've blocked so many different devices, only to be met with "work-arounds" to those blockages. My eldest teen, for example figured out how to by-pass the router using other routers or extenders, or whichever else that brilliant mind thought of, to refuse submitting to the rules.

But still I fight.
I remember that it's not a flesh and blood war in which I engage.
I wage war against the spiritual wickedness in high places.
It's spiritual.

Sleepless nights-- not because I distrust God (and I am certain I need to trust Him more. );
But I sleep restlessly often because I distrust this world, and the rulers of the darkness of this
age.

I must watch as well as pray; and while I pray I work on being anxious for nothing and making my requests known to the Lord. I pray.

And I sleep with one eye open.

Knowing the battle in the mind will be won. 

Because it must be.
So warring momma, you are not alone. 

We must fight.

The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but they are mighty through God

 to the pulling down of strongholds. 2 Corinthians 10:4