Great is Thy Faithfulness

Great is Thy faithfulness, O God my Father;
There is no shadow of turning with Thee.
Thou changest not, Thy compassions, they fail not;
As Thou hast been Thou forever wilt be.

Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided
Great is Thy Faithfulness, Lord unto me.

Summer and winter and spring-time and harvest,
Sun, moon and stars in their courses above
join with all nature in manifold witness
To Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.

Pardon for sin and a peace that endureth,
Thy own dear presence to cheer and to guide,
Strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow,
Blessings all mine, with ten thousand beside!



So this morning, I wake up with this great old hymn in my head. Let me start by saying that last night was really not a good night. Phoebe had a hard time around 3:00, Jake had a hard time, so we all had a hard time. And then Phoebe wakes again at 5, inconsolable and starving. My alarm went off at 6. I'm throwing back the coffee like it's water this morning.

Now I'm not saying all of this to complain. I just wanted to set things up here. Anyway, in spite of all that frustration, I am reminded of something: God has answered a specific prayer for me. Last week at Bible study, I asked the girls to pray that Phoebe would sleep past six so that I could have time to do my Bible study in the morning, and actually start my morning off on the right foot. The time change had really caused a lot of frustration in that area, and I needed it so badly. And here I am, it's 7:20, and I'm able to blog, drink coffee, relax... all after spending some time in the Word and in prayer. Phoebe slept. Past six. Yes, she woke up for a feeding at 5; yes, I hope we eliminate that feeding again ASAP. But what a beautiful thing! That prayer, that specific prayer, was answered.

I've been feeling a bit "woe-is-me" lately about all of this. See, Phoebs is past the really sick part of being sick and is now in the irritable, "I don't feel good and I'm teething, so I'm going to make things hard" stage. She napped for a total of about 1 1/2 hours yesterday. (Her normal nap total is somewhere around 4-5 hours.) At the end of the day, I was just plain depleted. Michael even took us to Target and picked up pizza for dinner, and it did little to help my mood. But I think God wanted me to change my perspective, to peek in on his faithfulness.

Because this morning, and every morning, God is faithful. Whether I see it, whether I acknowledge it, whether I realize it... He is faithful. This morning, I'm thankful for the blessing of actually seeing it. His mercies are new every morning!

And even though my prayer of sleeping 12 hours, a "7 to 7" night, was not answered last night... I'm grateful that the Lord has been gracious enough to show me that he does indeed care for my prayers. She slept past seven! Praise the Lord!