naps are simply wasted on babies.
they don't like them; they don't use them. and worst of all, there is no way for them to give them to their parents, who would truly appreciate even a 30-minute nap and pay the infant's weight in gold for the ability to redeem a ruined naptime.
while mourning the loss of my ability to take a nap when i want, this strange fact of reality has meant that i have also had to develop what i only know to call "glory in the mediocrity." glory meaning that just as plants glorify God by growing, planets glorify Him by spinning through the empty void of space a million miles an hour, and cats glorify Him by running into walls (ours, anyway), so i glorify God by weeding the garden.
ha ha- you know that's a bald-faced lie. i weeded half the garden. and by "weeded" i mean, "i at least removed half of the weeds visible from space."
if it's not too bold of me to say, i glorified Him by using those 14 minutes as best i could, and yesterday that meant weeding. and He multiplied my minutes x2, because by some fluke the lil boss accidentally slept for about 28 minutes instead of her usual 9.
it is not even close to the best half-done-weeding job. i was tempted to leave some of those plants because they clearly wanted to be in the garden waaaay more than i did. one of them was simply massive, and even had some lame-o blue flowers to try to fit in with the flower bush i actually wanted there. to be honest, i was tempted to leave every last one of the weeds there, because i knew i wouldn't have time to do it all- giving me the perfect excuse to wait until i had 3 hours (which would be never). but at least as far as the garden goes, God didn't want me to do the whole thing- but He wanted me to do something.
this 3-month old reality of mine means i will probably never do anything at all again without at least 4 interruptions. in fact, she herself WAS a major life interruption. even a bathroom trip requires more strategy than it would at work on a 13-hour shift. the idea of a complete nap or a bubble bath or reading a complete chapter of a book is laughable. my drawing will possibly be done when bugaboo is school-age, at this rate. as will her baby book. and because we are gluttons for self-inflicted punishment, we are about to take this cute little life interruption on a several-hundred-mile-long road trip. i can't wait to see how this goes.
but it will go. not sure how well, but it will go. we are going to try to do however much or little we can with each day He gives us. He's not looking for perfection; that's His job. He's looking for those who trust and obey, who go step by step in faith. for those who point to our mediocre flower garden like a toddler holding up a crayon picture to show his parents, knowing that they will stick it to their fridge and treasure it- not because it's beautiful (because it is not. objectively, there is less value in the picture than a fresh sheet of paper has), but because they treasure the one who did it.
so far, i have found zero parables in which the one Jesus finds favor with is perfect. prodigal son? nope. not by a long shot. but he did finally come home. "son #2"? nope. but he did finally go and do the work he said he wouldn't bother doing. good samaritan? he probably could have done more… but he was the one who did something. the latest group of vineyard workers? they only worked for, like, an hour. but they did work that hour.
none of these say Jesus thinks laziness is a virtue. but they do say He thinks it glorifies Him when we do what we can, when we can, for Him. not sure when He wants me to work on the other half of the garden (maybe before the first half is overgrown again?), but i do know when He wants me to take care of lil' miss interruption, and when to focus on Him, and when to rejoice in every tiny nap He provides.
