someone to watch over me
Just before sinking into bed, I put my phone on the charger and I see: Adam’s blood sugar has skyrocketed so high his continuous glucose monitor has stopped reporting a number. HIGH it reads, caps-shouting, double arrows pointing up, up, still going up! though no alarm has sounded. “Adam’s blood sugar is high,” I say to Kevin with a sigh, turning to leave the room.
“No, I’ll go,” Kevin says, dropping the pillow he holds in his hands, rounding the bed toward the door.
Having no appreciation at all for the gravity of the situation, Adam will complain the moment Kevin opens the door to his room. We joke about this, Adam’s old man voice in the dark, croaking grumpy words, “It’s time for sleeping.” How dare you, his tone says further, as though the whole situation offends, and of course, it does. I smile, plumping and propping pillows, because I can’t help but reflect on times God has interrupted me to insist on some healing course, and I have felt incredulous and frustrated over the imposition. How little I know sometimes of the danger before me, how brash I can be, and still, He loves; still, He insists; still, He heals me.
I slide under the covers and grab my book, sighing again, both over the momentary comfort and the knowledge that we’ll need to stay awake until we know for sure that equilibrium has been achieved one more time.
Kevin comes back chuckling, affecting Adam’s gravelly reprimand. “I am trying to go to bed,” Kevin says with mock stiffness, grinning at me, then proceeds with the usual details: pump looks good, correction bolus underway. We theorize as to cause: Adam failed to dose for dessert? Or miscalculated his supper? Or, some fluke thing, some unseen chemistry contributed, like the crazy teen cocktail of growth hormone and antibodies that soars in the night. Maybe he’s fighting an illness? Diabetes is a puzzle and the pieces are many and complicated. We pick up ideas and put them down, settling in to wait. We won’t sleep until he’s safe.
Every hour for the next few, one of us will wander down the hall and check the sensor that has, with the distance, ceased reporting to my phone. We’ll administer more insulin until the monitor stops shouting HIGH and shows us numbers and arrows pointing down. Together, Kevin and I keep vigil, while Adam sleeps and rouses to growl and sleeps again, drifting from rest to protest and back. He hardly knows how we watch over him and honestly hardly cares. If anything, Adam finds our attentions intrusive and impolite. He has no more understanding of this present danger than a sheep preyed on by wolves, a sheep sleeping beneath the watchful eye of a shepherd.
And in this context, how can I help but think of my own ever-watchful shepherd? How many rescues does he make without my knowledge? “The LORD watches over you…the LORD will keep you from all harm,” the psalmist writes (Psalm 121: 5,7). He who watches over me will not slumber or sleep (Psalm 121:4). The words in Psalm 121 are repetitious, and not accidentally so. While the Hebrew words translated slumber and sleep both refer to falling asleep, one means to do so from drowsiness and the other appeals to some languid lack of desire or energy for physical exertion. The writer intentionally underscores this truth: God never runs out of energy for us. He never gets lazy. He doesn’t stretch out to rest and forget us. He is constantly awake to our needs. Will this mean we never suffer? Unfortunately not, as long as we live in a crumbling, pain-ridden, infectiously discouraging world. But it does mean that as long as we choose to remain in the shelter of God, we can rest assured nothing escapes His notice. We can rest because of His watchfulness.
I think of the steadfast faithfulness of God, the boundlessness of both His perspective and His knowledge, as my own eyes flutter now and my head, though still full of questions and concern for my son, begins to fall, as I change positions and throw one leg out from under the covers to wake myself up, as I pick up my phone and blearily look for some sudden connection with Adam’s monitor. I think of the imperfection of our human attentions compared to the watchfulness of God, as Kevin drags himself out of bed to wander again down the hall. I think of the disciples in the garden with Jesus, how they were with Him in the dark night but unable to stay awake for his anguished prayers, and I wake again to this truth:
I must lean on others through hard times without expecting the limitlessness of God.
And I must know and rely on the love of God that surpasses human limits.
However well we love, God loves better.
