the night warriors

Little Miss Clara just turned seven months old, and she is still waking up once a night for a feeding. Sometimes it’s 3am, sometimes it’s 6am, or anywhere in between… but ultimately it means that I have been called out of my sleep and out of my bed every single night for more than half a year.

Since we were dealing with literally hourly wakings in the first few weeks of her life due to all the complications she had with nursing, and since I had three solid months of horrific insomnia after her sleeping and feeding issues finally resolved, getting up once at night for 20 minutes isn’t really that big a deal. I can do it, and I don’t really mind. But every now and then I get a nagging spirit of discontentment and impatience and think, She should be over this by now. She shouldn’t need a night feeding anymore. She’s big and healthy and I want my sleep back.

When she woke up way earlier than usual the other night—2:30am—I was really frustrated, and wondered if I was doing something wrong, or if I needed to sleep train her. But sitting in the rocker in her pitch-dark room, with her warm milky breath on my cheek, I began to pray for her, as I always do. And I remembered: “Rejoice always; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18).

Without these wee-hours wakings, would I be as faithful to pray?

Daytime comes with diapers and housework and to-do lists, nap routines and mealtimes and chores. It is so easy to cease praying when my mind and hands are constantly busy. But at 4am, when there is nothing to look at, no one to talk to, and nothing that needs urgent doing—when there is only a baby in my arms and the hum of her sound machine in the background—I am reminded to pray, and reminded of the countless spiritual wars that have likely been won in these dark and quiet nights by the prayers of mother-warriors across the generations. It may be that the mightiest power in the cosmos is within easy reach of the empathetic hearts and nurturing hands of praying moms.

My mom is one of the fiercest warriors I know. So was my mother-in-law, Suze—whose loss I feel keenly every day, though I hope God still lets her intercede for us in heaven. I have seen spiritual battle done tirelessly by both of them on behalf of their children, day and night, not for a mere seven months, but for decades.

I can only hope to follow in their footsteps, and if I need to keep getting called out of bed at 4am to build the skills, then so be it.