Why is it that so often things seem completely on hold and standing still?
It struck me today that just a year ago I was utterly exhausted and discouraged about how little sleep I was getting, and in the months that followed how little progress we seemed to be making on getting our baby twins to sleep.
I was reading every book on sleep training, applying all the techniques diligently, trying to be patient, not being patient, thinking for some reason our girls might never sleep through the night.
After six months, one Monday morning we were both at our wits end, so I googled “night nurse” and the next day the wonderful Lisa Bailey, a 16-yr registered nurse pro, spent the night.
She didn’t sleep but the babies did, with hardly a whimper or wake-up. She came two more nights and they slept both nights, all night!
Her awesome tricks-of-the-trade plus our own learning had finally yielded a breakthrough. And ever since, our darlings sleep 12 hours a night, with few exceptions except for occasional colds, travel, or teething.
Isn’t life so often like this? The monotony of waiting, pain, worry, hopelessness, zero signs of change, zero evidence of breakthrough.
And then, THEN, everything is different.
It felt similar while waiting 10+ years for a dreamed-of move to NYC. Years of working, trying, investing, learning and zero apparent possibilities. One day after long meetings I called my Mom in tears, feeling completely wasted and out of hope that a move would EVER open up.
What I didn’t know was a dinner I’d just had that evening with someone I’d only just met, was THE open door. That man would make a call in the next few days and just two months later I’d be living in NYC.
So whatever it is that feels hopeless, forever on hold, or without any movement, really IS moving. Because YOU’RE moving, and so are a dozen other things you have no way of seeing or knowing are in motion. But they are. And so are you.
Be encouraged today while you wait. Your breakthrough is on the move toward you even now.