Things that go bump in the night

I am finding that my schedule is once again digressing from the normal 'go bed at a decent time so I can be up, showered, and ready to go by 8:00am' to my more natural 'stay up until about 2:00am and sleep in until 9:30'. This really is not good when you have kids. Now that school is out Rachel could easily follow the same schedule--and often does, but Ryan never sleeps past 8:30am and is usually up before 7:00. The problem is that he is creative and very independent--yes that is a nice way of saying he gets into everything!!

Being a conscientious educator, I have encouraged him to get up and let the dog out, feed her, and watch television quietly. He invariably adds making himself breakfast--which always messy no matter how I try to prepare for him the night before. Some sarcastic, violent cartoon is usually substituted for the educational TV program we discussed, and more often than not he can't resist running out into the backyard in his underwear chasing the dog who is loudly barking. All of this to say that staying up half the night is rarely followed by a restful 'sleep in' morning. None the less, my nights are getting later and later.

Over the weekend I found myself up particularly late one night. I was Internet surfing, playing spider solitaire, and halfway watching an old movie. Everyone in the house was sound asleep including the dog. About 2:23 am the silence was broken by the high pitched sound of a little voice. At first I thought I imagined it, but then a few minutes later I heard it again. Just a few words but enough to make my heart beat a bit faster.

Years ago I decided that I would not live my life in fear as that is the antitheses of faith, but when you hear these kinds of noises in the night it takes a little reminding. The fact that Ellie was sound asleep and not barking her head off gave comfort because had it been a real threat she would definitely announced it. I carefully walked into the hallway between our bedroom and the family room and waited. No more voices spoke for several minutes so I decided all must be well and went to bed.

The next day, Ryan and I were reading in the family room when the voices started again. This time it was clear to me that the voices were coming from the corner of the Family Room where I have two baskets of toys; one for each of my nieces who come often to visit. There right in the middle of one of baskets was a red Sesame Street stuffed toy--Tickle Me Elmo--to be exact and it was talking. The mystery was solved and Ryan calmly said, "Oh listen mom, Savannah Grace forgot to turn off Elmo, I'll do it." I was immediately transported mentally to a little house on Third Street in Arkansas City, Kansas where I lived with my family when I was 5 years old. I had been given a 'Chatty Cathy' doll for Christmas that I dearly loved. By about March she no longer talked, even when I pulled the string in her back. I kept her in a cradle by my bed and one night as I was almost asleep, she suddenly said, "I love you". I remember lying there in such terror. I wanted to scream, or run to my mom in the next room or something, but instead I just laid there paralyzed with fear.

I wonder how many times we as adults allow situations, or relationships to paralyze us with fear, when all we have to do is open our eyes of faith and see that our fears are completely unfounded. Sometimes I think we even allow our fears to prevent us from expressing our love and worship to God. We try to keep our relationship with Him private so as to 'not offend anyone'; we keep our worship very controlled so as to 'not draw attention to ourselves'; we even fail to openly give thanks for our food because of what others might think.

I've learned that most things that go bump in the night, usely just lie there during the day, and life is too short to allow any kind of fear to prevent us living out our lives of faith to the fullest.