Encouragement for this Season of Distress

Most of us moms are put through the wringer during flu and cold season every winter. We are up in the night with sick kids, stripping beds, giving baths, calming fears, speaking reassuring words, cleaning disgusting messes, and doing loads and loads and loads of laundry. We’re doing all this while trying to talk but not breathe and suppressing the gag reflex so we can offer comfort.

During these times of giving (and giving and giving!), I remind myself I have someone who is meeting all my needs while I labor to meet the many needs of my family. Of course, Matt is a huge help, and I’m so thankful for his willingness to miss sleep and jump in doing any number of things. But, at the end of the day, the running of the household is my responsibility. Picking up the pieces and putting them back together again couldn’t be done by all the king’s horses and all the king’s men. But we moms have to find a way to do it.

I hear this season is short. Their little immune systems are being built. The days when they don’t know what a sick stomach feels like or how to express it in time are coming to an end. They’ll run to the appropriate trash receptacle someday. But right now, they run to me.

Their running teaches me to go running too. Not away from it all like I might want, but to my loving Heavenly Father in prayer. He is ready to renew my strength so I can do that next load of laundry. He gives me words of care to encourage my fearful little ones. He helps me have my wits about me when I’m abruptly awakened by, well, I won’t say, but you know it well too. He is with me, speaking words of comfort through His Word, when I collapse into bed at night and give into the temptation of convincing myself I can’t do it again tomorrow. But the next day, as sure as He makes the sun to rise, He gives me the blessing of fresh grace to meet whatever He brings across my path. So when everyone comes running and I think I can’t run anymore, that’s a sure sign I have one more place I must run – to Him.

“In seasons of distress and grief, my soul has often found relief,
and oft escaped the temper’s snare, by thy return sweet hour of prayer.”
-William Walford, “Sweet Hour of Prayer”