waking up

How did you wake up this morning?

This morning, I woke up at 5:15 to Moriah fussing. As soon as I heard it, I knew she was having a seizure because she never cries out in the morning when she wakes. She starts kicking her legs (or thumping them against her bed, which is the reason we've taken to calling her "Thumper") and babbling happily. Like me, she tends to be a cheery morning person. But this morning, she was crying and whining, and as I got to her cribside, I could see she was seizing. Her little arms were thrusting straight out, her legs folding up to her chest. I picked her up and sat on the edge of my fold-out chair-bed, rocking her and singing. The song that came to mind this morning was, "I've Got Peace Like a River," and I sang it over and over through the five minute episode, again willing myself not to panic, not to cry, not to be anxious.

After I had settled Moriah again, I wondered about how my friends and family were awakened this morning. By alarm clocks that begin the mad morning rush that is school and work. By the padding of little feet on the bedroom floor and the toddler crawling into her parent's bed. By the iPhone playing a funky tune. Or a spouse. Or the smell of coffee. Typical mornings, and I wondered how many had the time as I did this morning to hold and rock their little ones, to pause and sing and welcome peace. These moments are the graces and the gifts in the horror.

When I checked my email this morning I received yet another email from Compassion International, updating our family about one of the children we sponsor, who lives in Haiti. Little Jeffte. He is not yet found, but the organization was writing to let us know that many of the children who are sponsored were injured and even dead. We await news on Jeffte, who is one of many connections we have to Haiti. And it made me wonder...how did Jeffte wake up this morning? And his family? Did they wake up at all?

I have a lot of questions in times like this--times when my family suffers, when thousands of people suffer. When children get sick, are injured, or die. I ask the same questions over and over, and there are never any answers, nothing that satisfies. I get angry for the lack of answers, angry at the injustice of all the suffering, angry that some seem to be chosen again and again (oh, people of Haiti!) to suffer neglect and pain. I want to be a person of faith, but I am so often a doubter. I want to be one who embraces mystery, but instead I wish the mysteries that affect my life and the lives of those I love were more comprehensible. I want to be a pilgrim of courage when all goes dark, having seen enough of light to trust I will see it again, but instead, I grope for a wick and try to light fires with my own understanding. I want to be a person who trusts always that we here on this earth are ultimately loved by a great spiritual Lover, but I am like little Moriah in my pain, unable to remember when I'm seized with fear that I am in the arms of a great God-parent, secure.

I want to be sure-of-faith. But instead, I wake up this morning to a baby seizing, the news of aftershocks in Haiti, and a heartbreaking email about Jeffte. I sing about having peace-like-a-river, not as one who feels the peace, but as one crying out for peace. Asking again for God to meet me here, to help my unbelief, to wake up my awareness of Spirit-presence. O loving Father, wake me up again!