When my daughter was a baby, she didn't sleep well at all! Our other child, Dan, was a GREAT baby who slept through the night beginning when he was three weeks old. But Megan was not an easy baby, and so my wife and I spent the first three or four years of her life zombie-walking through our lives.
We had a plan that worked sort of well. We would take turns staying up with Megan, so that each of us got a good night's sleep every other day. On the weekends, whoever stayed up late with Megan got to sleep in and take a nap later on. This enabled us to survive Megan's baby years without selling her to the gypsies for a handful of magic beans...
But it didn't always work...
One day I was teaching at the elementary school where I worked, and I was having a really hard day. My students were WONDERFUL that year, and they were extremely patient with me on the days when I was really sleepy. On this hard day, they had just about exhausted themselves trying to help me get through the morning. It wasn't going well, to say the least! I began to feel really guilty because I knew I wasn't doing a good job. I knew that these kids deserved better than what I was giving them. I knew how things were going...but I also knew that I was just about powerless to do anything about it.
Later, when I was on my way back to my room for my free period, I passed the school's custodian in the hall. Jacinto stopped me and asked if I was okay. (You know it's bad when the school custodian notices how bad you look...). I stopped and told him that I was up all night with my baby daughter and I was exhausted. He immediately brightened and said, "Can I make you a cup of my coffee?" I remember thinking how nice he was being to me, and I also remember thinking, "Maybe a cup of coffee would help." So I followed him to his little office where he poured a little water into some type of urn, pushed a lever or two, and produced a steaming cup of coffee in about 30 seconds. I thanked him and took the coffee to my room.
Within ten minutes of finishing that coffee, I began to come back to life...in fact, I felt great! When my students returned to the classroom, they immediately noticed their old teacher had returned. We proceeded to have a great day.
After school was out, I searched the school until I found Jacinto and thanked him over and over for that coffee. "It's my own recipe, but you can have a cup whenever you need it." I took him up on that offer a few more times before my daughter began sleeping through the night.
Moral of this story: PAY ATTENTION, Christians...you never know when the Lord will send one of his angels to help you. He might send one when you least expect it, or when you didn't even ask for help - but you desperately need it. He might even send one that you didn't expect at all.
And he might even send one with a great cup of coffee.
Amen!
