"In desperation I started to pray"

Michelle, with the help of her apparently colicky baby Jake, has learned a valuable lesson:

This weekend was a particularly bad weekend for Jake.  Thankfully the weather was nice out and we were able to take him outside to try to work through is crankiness.  That only worked for a while and we were left with a screaming baby.  By night time I was beside myself.  Why in the world was this baby crying so much?  Why wasn’t he responding to the methods I was using to calm him?   I felt my blood pressure rising and I could tell that I was almost to the point of not being able to be consoled either.  I decided that something had to give.  That something turned out to be me.

Frustrated, I picked up Jake and went into my bedroom.  I told the other kids to please not bother us.  I closed the door and laid down on the bed with him.  I had a bottle in hand and hoped to snuggle with him, let him eat, and hopefully fall asleep.  We settled down, his tiny head resting in the crook of my arm, and I offered the bottle to him.  He refused and pushed it away.  I could feel every muscle in my body tense up.  Jake felt it too.  I saw his lower lip pucker out, his eyes squinched tight and he started to cry.  I shushed him and whispered his name.  I pleaded with him to please, pleasesettle down.  I began to cry too.

In desperation I started to pray.

I decided that there was nothing else I could do but pray.  I decided on the rosary. I made the sign of the cross and I began reciting the Apostle’s Creed. I prayed it aloud.  I looked down at Jake and he stopped crying.  I don’t know if it was the calmness in my voice, the words itself, or the fact that I wasn’t tense, but he stopped crying.  As I continued to pray he started to smile at me. His eyes still glistening with tears were dancing with delight at the words I was reciting.  I had no idea what was going on but I knew it was what we needed.  I continued on with the Our Father.  He settled down even more.  I put the bottle to his mouth and he began to eat.  With his tiny hand he stroked my own that was holding his bottle.  The more I prayed the calmer he became and the more peace I felt.  We came to the first mystery.  I decided that I was going to pray for those men and women who wanted desperately to have a child, even one as chronically fussy as my own, and yet have not been blessed with a child.  I wanted to pray for those who have lost children and miss them terribly.  I wanted to pray for those who are pregnant and hoping their baby would be born healthy.  I wanted to pray for other women like myself who were dealing with difficult babies.  So, Jake and I prayed.

Jake eyes became heavy and he was asleep by the third Hail Mary in the first decade of the rosary.  I knew I could have stopped praying but I continued on anyway.  I couldn’t hold a rosary while I was holding him so to keep my place I used his little fingers to count.  I stroked his hand the way he had stroked mine and I continued to watch him as I prayed.  He was breathing so deeply and his eyelashes would flutter every now and again.  He was finally peaceful.  I wondered why it took me so long to decide to rely on God when I was so distraught.  Why did it take both Jake and me getting to the point where we couldn’t think, we couldn’t breathe, we couldn’t focus on anything but our misery before I thought to pray?

If you are anything like me you pray at all points in your day to help get you through.  I often say little prayers at various times of the day for many different reasons.  But I don’t often just make time for quiet prayer- prayer where I go to my room, close the door and focus solely on God.  Our lives are so busy.  Between working on various projects, children, outside responsibilities, housework, homeschooling, and others demanding my time and attention I often am hurried in the prayers that I say.  I know God would rather have those hurried prayers than no prayer, but I also know that He would much rather have my undivided time and attention.

She's got more and it's well worth your time.

Read it and learn.

I did.

Comments

[Kris, in New England]

This brought tears to my eyes. For it reminded me of a time, very recently, when I was inconsolable about some family problems; big problems that are insurmountable. I wept for most of a day at what was lost and in my grief, finally turned to God (which I should have done in the first place). I asked God to please take the burden of the pain away, that I couldn't survive it yet again. My entire body was wracked with sobs and literal physical pain to go with the emotional pain. The heart does break and it takes your body with it.
Anyway, as I prayed fervently I felt a hush come over the room; then I fell asleep. Very deeply in the middle of the day (which I never do).
When I woke up I had a headache to end all headaches and my body felt like it had been beaten and run over, repeatedly. I went thru the motions the rest of the day and went to bed early, sleeping like the dead all night long.
When I woke up in the morning - no pain. No headache, no physical pain and the heartbreak was gone. The lesson remains and I haven't lost the memory of what happened. But the pain of the loss was just - gone. In its place was the most intense feeling of peace I've ever had; and it's never really gone away.
It freed me - God freed me - so that I could forgive those who trespassed against me, so that I could move on with my life.
In gratitude to God, every minute of the day.