The day has wrapped itself in darkness and given a sigh of release. Today is finishing, tomorrow is imminent, and here we lay in the in-between. The sleepy time music signals the beginning of the routine as mama and child snuggle in together to await drooping eyelids and surrendering to the land of dreaming. You are three years old, and you still wear footie pyjamas, and oh dear heart, they are your favourite thing to wear to bed.

You lay there under the blanket, sucking that thumb of yours and rubbing your ear, and I whisper a prayer over you, for rest and thankfulness for your life and health and that you will know the depths of my love, and of His. I am wondering is this how you will learn to pray? Am I teaching you anything? Am I teaching you the right thing? And do you know just how much I love you? Do you really know?

My body aches with love and it radiates out of me straight to your little self snuggled up close to mine. I wonder – do you feel it? Do you notice that my entire body pulses with a deep and gut-wrenching kind of love that I never knew existed until you were born? A flesh-of-my-flesh, bone-of-my-bone kind of knowing that you are an extension of my very heart and soul. While you are lying sleepy-eyed and exhale the day away into a nighttime of rest, I am gasping for a soul-breath of release. I inch closer to you, I run my fingers through your hair, I gently rub my thumb on your little hand that rests near mine, and I breathe love in and I breathe love out. I whisper I-love-you-so-very-much with dampened eyes and I wonder if you know it? Do you really know it in the deep places in you? In your spirit? Do you feel it in your bones too?