Lent Day 10: Wait

I have had this alarm clock for ages. It has been my morning wake-up call, probably since I was in high school and it still sits on my bedside table. However, recently, it has been decommissioned. This has not been due to the fact that it doesn't work any more, although it does have its quirks. Instead, I have needed the outlet for other things- namely a nightlight so it is easier to care for my infant during the night. The other outlet is reserved for my phone charger, which, incidentally, my phone has become my alarm clock. This is also because I must get up multiple times during the night and setting the alarm on my alarm clock multiple times would be a much bigger hassle than, say, setting multiple alarms on my "smart" phone and only having to turn them on and off.

Why must I set multiple alarms during the night? Well, my little infant weighed in at under 5 pounds. My job has been to feed her every 2-3 hours so that she is gaining weight at the rate at which she needs to (which she has been by the way!). Unfortunately, this sometimes means waking her up to get her to eat. This is unfortunate, only for me because every time my alarm goes off before she wakes up all I can think is, I could be getting more sleep because she is still sleeping! But, I try to be a good mom and get myself out of bed and wake up my peacefully sleeping infant (doesn't that just sound agonizing?) and spend an hour feeding and supplementing and changing a diaper and pumping. When I finally get her settled down to sleep again (on good nights, that is right after I finish all of the above, on bad nights it is after pacing the living room for another little bit), all I can think about is the next feeding and how much sleep I might be able to get between the two if she doesn't grunt continually or wake herself up.

Waiting---currently it seems that my waiting has just been between feedings. It is always with one eye on the clock. It is counting hours. It is hoping for time to slow down just enough that I can sleep just a little bit more. It is impatiently waiting for a baby to go back to sleep so that I can hope for sleep, two hours maybe?

The blank clock seems like an ironic picture staring back at me. It almost seems to mock me, telling me I can't track time; that my waiting is going to continue on endlessly. And I do have more time to wait. She is supposed to be over 6 pounds before we let her take over in telling us when she is ready to eat. She isn't quite there yet, but we are getting closer. I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel when we get to just nurse instead of nursing and supplementing and pumping...
To me, that is what God is; He is the light at the end of the tunnel (although He is currently present as well). He is the hope in the waiting, even at two o'clock in the morning.