Watching the Baby Sleep

Posted on August 24, 2017 by Graeme Wilson in Victory Call

We have a brand new baby in our house! Everyone told me to sleep while the baby is sleeping. I realize that I can’t be awake 24/7, but it’s so hard to not simply stare at him while he snoozes. His little mouth hangs open, and he has the cutest, softest snores I’ve ever heard. I listen to him breathe and watch his chest rise and fall, and I watch and enjoy his peacefulness.
From the first time you’re handed your baby in the hospital, there is a great deal of fear mongering regarding infant sleep habits. There is so much fear about SIDS and a long list of what you should do to prevent it, accompanied by the helpful disclaimer that no one really knows what causes SIDS and therefore you can’t truly prevent it. So we brought him home from the hospital, brand new parents with way too much knowledge about all the things that can go wrong. I’m thankful that I can put my baby to bed and entrust him into the care of an all-powerful, all-wise, good, good Father.
Eventually I have to go to sleep. And when I do, I rest in the knowledge that while I sleep, my heavenly Father watches over me and my baby with a better love, a deeper love and a more powerful love than I can even imagine. I am powerless to control what happens to my baby, but my Father neither slumbers nor sleeps, [He] doesn’t look away for a moment (Ps. 121). He created us and ordained our days–there is no force on earth powerful enough to change His plan for us (Ps. 139).
Instead of going to sleep afraid, I’ve been enjoying going to sleep thinking about God’s fatherly care for us. It’s been a special time with our new little guy, made even more wonderful as I begin to understand the love that a parent has for their child and how God chose us before the foundation of the world and in love adopted us as sons (Eph 1). How sweet to feel, even in part, the depth of what God feels toward His children, displayed in Isaiah 49:15:

“Can a woman forget her nursing child,

that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?

Even these may forget,

yet I will not forget you.”

Now excuse me…I have to go watch my baby sleep! 🙂
Jenn Cougle
Jenn serves as America’s Keswick’s Media Technician. She is married to Steven Cougle, a Colony grad who serves in the Housekeeping department, and is a mother to her sweet little baby Titus.