"A Blessing for Wakefulness"

I woke up early Wednesday morning from a nightmare easily identified as an indication of stress. Amidst a busy season at the office and midterms in grad classes, we find ourselves confronted making a decision about kindergarten. Of course, it’s not just a decision about kindergarten. It’s a decision about the next many years of our family’s life and development and energy. It’s a decision about a community to which we will commit our children and into which we will pour our hopes for their formation.

When I woke up with the dream’s leftover anxiety, I prayed for the sort of courage that might write a theology of school choice. I found some solace in remembering dear friends who have made the same choice before us. I am deeply grateful for friends who are honest about both beauty and missteps in their lives. They are models for me and their kids are models for my kids. Someday I might like to write the theology of our school choice. Wednesday morning though, I leaned on words written by a friend, words I find particularly meaningful when I face fear and must remember to whom and to what purpose I am committed.

Waking up is hard to do
But once we see
How deep the suffering goes
How high the purpose of human beings
Created in the image of the Creator
What is sleep, but settling for so much less?
What is sleep, but surrendering to a tiny, lazy savior?
What is sleep, but biding time in such boredom
That eternity becomes bad news?

So, friends, may you be fully awake,
And in that wakefulness:
May you love beyond reason.
May you hope beyond what’s realistic.
May you find true pleasure in what pleases God.
May your hunger and thirst for shalom
Be satisfied by the Bread of Life
Embodied in the bread of earth.

You may find the full poem, "A Blessing for Wakefulness" by Kirstin Vander Giessen-Reitsema, here: https://www.catapultmagazine.com/wake-up/editorial/a-blessing-for-wakefulness