It’s happened for a while but sometimes the activity of it comes more to my own attention. I walk out to see one of my children on the couch; one has switched rooms and one coming in from next door due to the need to care for some one else during the night. I’m glad to see that Anna did not roll off the air mattress on our bedroom floor. In times past, I’ve almost stepped on her sleeping body. We call this musical beds and due to the increase of visitors and ones that come with needs, it happens on a regular basis. The shifting of rooms and the blowing up of air mattresses has become the ebb and flow of life at the Martins.

It’s just a place to sleep; I want to keep telling myself, as I struggle at times with the constant need for my children to rotate places of sleeping. It would appear that the struggle is my own, and not theirs. This is the new “ground breaking” in my own heart. It requires releasing of a different kind. The patterns in which I was raised in, may take a different shape in my children. It is the more that God has required of them, which I have never had to experience. When they were younger so much of my time was tending to their needs, or seeking to teach them to help serve when there was need. Now I find myself as a silent observer, watching them move with the Spirit in ways that I would have never pictured.

This is where I must be careful to not lay a standard that would block what my Heavenly Father might be calling them unto. A standard as simple as: “Every one must have their own bed.” It dawned on me one morning as I’m stepping over sleeping bodies, that this flexibility that they are being called to live out, might be preparing them for something more in His kingdom.

Are my songs His songs? What comes from the melody of my life? John says “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24) What songs do my children see me singing, when life takes a turn to what appears to be unplanned and chaotic? I’m learning a new way to spell faith; SURRENDER. I can only sing with David “…lead me to a rock that is higher than I…” as I’ve learned to release to my Heavenly Father all the things I do not understand. This is a place that is unmovable, unchangeable and a steadfast love that holds me, when I see nothing “physical” to hold on to. We give our children an immeasurable gift, when we ourselves willingly embrace all that the Father gives, in both pain and joy, when we are on schedule and when all our plans have been interrupted. It’s easy to dance to the melody of joy, but how are we doing when the minor keys flow?

His songs often do come in the night, and He does give his beloved sleep (there is no mention of beds ) The musical melody of bed swapping will only continue in my home, if my heart is willing to allow His Spirit to lead in the chorus.