My 2 year old little boy has the wonderful joy of having night terrors, not nightmares (well at least not yet) but night terrors. On several occasions I have been startled awake by sudden screams of a little boy just about 2 hours after he has fallen asleep. I make my way upstairs to witness a weird and sometimes scary scene. He flails, he screams at the top of his lungs, and his eyes have a very glassy look to them. For our little boy this typically lasts for 15 minutes to a half an hour but occasionally longer and this particular night was definitely longer.
Sometimes all that we can do is just simply wait it out with him and make sure he is safe but this night was dragging on and on with no sign of the madness coming to an end. I tried several times to reach my arms out toward him to pick him up and countless times I was greeted with more screaming and a more horrified look on his face. I tried to assure him by saying, "It's Mommy." My attempts were not successful and I began to cry. I remember in that moment feeling so helpless and thinking how can I help him when he doesn't even know who I am.
He eventually calmed down and went back to sleep and of course didn't remember a thing about it the next morning, but I did. I learned a great lesson that night. I saw a small glimpse of what our Heavenly Father might feel when His own children do not know Him and what it might feel like to have them not accept your help and to not even recognize or acknowledge who you are.
It is hard for our Father in Heaven to help us if we don't know Him. We must go to Him in prayer and talk with Him. We must strive to know Him and to accept His outstretched hand. He is there. Even when we our lives are in a flailing and screaming state, especially when our lives are in that state, we must accept his helping hand and not be afraid to make changes or to have the faith to move forward in difficult situations.
It was sad and scary to me to have my son not know who I was and through the process I realized how much more sad and more scary it is if we don't know who our Heavenly Father is. I hope that we all can strengthen our relationship with our Father in Heaven and recognize that He is always there even in our darkest and most confusing hours. And even when we feel we don't know Him, He always knows us. He knows us and He loves us.
2 comments:
i love this post! my kids have done this before too and it really is hard to know there is nothing you can do for them. i love how you applied this to knowing our heavenly father! thanks! :)
Along with faith and prayer, you might try a wet wash cloth on his face,to wake him. My son and husband both suffer (and suffer is totally the word here!) from night terrors, and my husband can now tell me about the dreams, my son is also starting to, so the fact that your son cannot remember may be the real blessing here!
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