The young new mother came to see me. She told me how exhausted she was. Her baby was a few months old and the arrival of her baby boy had turned her life upside down. She was so utterly exhausted that every time she tried to pray, she fell asleep. She felt like she was a total failure. It felt like she was drowning and that she could do nothing about it. Surely God would be angry with her since she was such a failure in prayer, since she fell alseep whenever she tried to pray.

We talked for a couple of minutes. Well, actually, she did. It served to move her mind on for a little while. Then I asked her how she felt when her baby fell asleep in her arms. How did she feel when he fell asleep and he was ignoring her as he lay in her arms. Didn’t that annoy her? Did she not want to wake him and demand his attention? “Oh no,” she said,”I love it when he falls asleep in my arms. It is so beautiful.”

“Well,” I replied quietly and gently, “do you not realise that when you fall asleep as you are praying that you are falling asleep in your father’s arms and that he thinks it is so beautiful too?”