Comfort and sleepless nights

For several weeks, our dear son (15 months old) had trouble sleeping through the night.  He would wake, either because he was coughing, or hot, or hungry, or for some other reason, and would cry and wail.  He knew how to put himself back to sleep, yet for a short time it seemed like he had forgotten. Late one night I remember doing everything I could to comfort him.  I put him on my shoulder, I held him in my arms, I shushed him, hummed to him, sang to him, prayed for him.  Nothing would console him, and he kept arching his back and wiggling to get out of my arms.

The solution we finally came to was to lay him on the carpeted floor on his back, then sit down several paces away.  He would impossibly cry harder for a few seconds then look around for my wife and me.  I would then tell him that if he wanted a hug, he would have to get up and walk to me.  He would do so, and from then on it was much better going.

Sometimes I think we are the same: refusing to take comfort in any of the loving kindnesses our Father gives us every moment of every day.  We want comfort, but can't adequately conceive of how to get it, so we wiggle and arch our backs painfully then wonder why nothing we do seems to work.

In these instances, sometimes the Father has to put us down and step away, not because we've necessarily been rebellious but because by doing so He can reset our minds and intents to come to Him.  When we come to Him, we receive comfort, and are soothed.

Better still, however, to come to Him constantly, to look for the comfort he is raining down on us like dews distilling from heaven, and to accept it and be soothed.  Because just as it is a measure of maturity in an infant when he can soothe himself to sleep, so it is a mark of spiritual maturity when learn to constantly turn to the Lord for comfort and peace no matter the pain, suffering, or confusion which surrounds us.