Miracles are happening

Miracles, yes there are miracles happening at our house!!

As many of our friends and family know, nighttime sleep is infrequent at our house and has been since our beloved firstborn entered the world with his alert, bright eyes that never wanted to go to sleep. 4 1/2 years ago I thought I was going to die from sleep deprivation and exhaustion. My body was so stressed, when Josiah was 6 months old I developed shingles. (Shingles usually emerge when the body is stressed; it is the chicken pox virus that lays dormant in your body until stress on the body strikes... and it reemerges as shingles) That was fun.

Overtime and verrry slowly, Josiah's sleep improved. Then, Paul entered the world and though he wasn't as difficult as Josiah was, he still proved a challenge to get to stay asleep. At age 1 through 18 months, either he or Josiah was screaming about 50% of the night.

Before we had children, I used to tell Justin that I neeeeded 9 hours or more of sleep a night to be able to function properly. During the pregnancy with Josiah I would sleep on average of 11 hours every night. Unbelievable huh?! So God in His infinite irony and wisdom, blessed me with 2 babies who never really wanted to jump on the sleepy train. It was a constant, daily, reliance on Him, day and night, to get me through. I was at my wits end, my brain didn't function, I felt fuzzy in the head all of the time, all I could think about was the glorious bliss of my head hitting the pillow... oooh it was so hard, every day and night, without the Lord's grace and strength I would have lost my mind. I needed Him so desperately, so I clung to Him.

Thankfully, those days are becoming memories of the past, though the memory of God's faithfulness to me during that time will remain as a standing stone* in my life. For me to always remember His care, His power, His provision of strength, and His love and faithfulness to me during those very difficult days when the deprivation of sleep caused me to be someone I didn't want to be.    

*Joshua 4

      When the whole nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the Lord said to Joshua, ² “Choose twelve men from among the people, one from each tribe, ³ and tell them to take up twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan,from right where the priests are standing, and carry them over with you and put them down at the place where you stay tonight. ”

⁴ So Joshua called together the twelve men he had appointed from the Israelites, one from each tribe, ⁵ and said to them, “Go over before the ark of the Lord your God into the middle of the Jordan. Each of you is to take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, ⁶ to serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean?’ ⁷ tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever.”

⁸ So the Israelites did as Joshua commanded them. They took twelve stones from the middle of the Jordan,according to the number of the tribes of the Israelites, as the Lord had told Joshua; and they carried them over with them to their camp, where they put them down. ⁹ Joshua set up the twelve stones that had been^[a] in the middle of the Jordan at the spot where the priests who carried the ark of the covenant had stood. And they are there to this day.

¹⁰ Now the priests who carried the ark remained standing in the middle of the Jordan until everything the Lord had commanded Joshua was done by the people, just as Moses had directed Joshua. The people hurried over,¹¹ and as soon as all of them had crossed, the ark of the Lord and the priests came to the other side while the people watched. ¹² The men of Reuben, Gad and the half-tribe of Manasseh crossed over, ready for battle, in front of the Israelites, as Moses had directed them. ¹³ About forty thousand armed for battle crossed over before the Lord to the plains of Jericho for war.

¹⁴ That day the Lord exalted Joshua in the sight of all Israel; and they stood in awe of him all the days of his life, just as they had stood in awe of Moses.¹⁵ Then the Lord said to Joshua, ¹⁶ “Command the priests carrying the ark of the covenant law to come up out of the Jordan.”¹⁷ So Joshua commanded the priests, “Come up out of the Jordan.”¹⁸ And the priests came up out of the river carrying the ark of the covenant of the Lord. No sooner had they set their feet on the dry ground than the waters of the Jordan returned to their place and ran at flood stage as before.

¹⁹ On the tenth day of the first month the people went up from the Jordan and camped at Gilgal on the eastern border of Jericho. ²⁰ And Joshua set up at Gilgal the twelve stones they had taken out of the Jordan. ²¹ He said to the Israelites, “In the future when your descendants ask their parents, ‘What do these stones mean?’ ²² tell them, ‘Israel crossed the Jordan on dry ground.’ ²³ For the Lord your God dried up the Jordan before you until you had crossed over. The Lord your God did to the Jordan what he had done to the Red Sea^[b] when he dried it up before us until we had crossed over. ²⁴ He did this so that all the peoples of the earth might know that the hand of the Lord is powerful and so that you might always fear the Lord your God. 

In a miraculous turn of events, the 2 little men of the house are sleeping, in THEIR OWN BEDS, almost ALL NIGHT. Josiah has not had a night terror in a while and Paul's screaming fits are maybe once a week. The only change we have made is that Justin is doing all of the nighttime getting up with the boys. When Justin gets up with them, the lay down and go right back to sleep. With me it's the opposite, they are up and screaming and want me to be next to them until they fall back to sleep (I have done that their whole lives so why would they want anything different?) So for about 2 months since Justin has been in charge at night, things have progressively gotten MUCH better. The last week they've been sleeping all night. Paul might wake up once and Josiah usually gets up to go to the bathroom (YAY!) but gets right back in bed (I wasn't sure we'd ever see the day that happened!).

And Paul is officially in the big bed now. Josiah sleeps on the top bunk and Paul on the bottom. Josiah decided he wasn't scared to be on the top, so up he went. No more crib mattress on the floor!

These are miracles I tell you, MIRACLES! 

And Leah sleeps so good. I feel like a different person and am dreaming at night again (a sign that I am sleeping good; as I haven't dreamt but a handful of times in the last 4 years), and waking up refreshed and not foggy in the head anymore. 

Praise God. He did this. I am so thankful.