This was a thread on my personal Twitter feed from the other night, but Twitter being Twitter, split what was one thread into two. Here is the whole thread as it was intended.
Girlb has been up intermittently for the last hour or so, concerned by the fact that their song-playing owl nightlight to timed out and that she thought she heard thunder and it scared her. Each time, I tucked her back into bed and she’d get back up and come back in.
This last time, I brought her back to bed, went to check the weather outside (some sprinkles and that inimitable precursor breeze) and came back to hear her praying. ‘Jesus, please make a bad weather go away.’
I went in to her room, kneeled at her bedside and asked her why. She prayed again for good weather as I got her special stuffie and blanket. I told her, as I do when there is bad weather outside, that she is safe in this house and that the weather can do whatever it likes, it has no bearing on her.
She replied, ‘I can be brave.’
I leaned in, kissed her and whispered, ‘You don’t have to be brave.’ She looked at me, in the glow of a lullaby owl nightlight, puzzled. ‘Save your courage for when you need it.’
I told her I loved her and she rolled over, still disquieted, but content.
Her nascent faith regularly leaves me in awe. It, as opposed to my own deeply-sprained, shaken-to-its-core variety, is so pure, so ready to seek help because she feels helpless in the face of things bigger that her.
I know the feeling.
2018 has been more or less a disaster on this front. Lots of things are bigger than me and seem to threaten the core of my being. I’ve been the one needing to be brave, with mixed effort and results.
I need that comfort and assurance that I need not have to be brave today.
Let the weather rage. I am safe in this house.
sailerb 