Waiting for Light

This week marked the last week of summer, the start of school and a very timely week long business trip for my husband.

So obviously, everything is awesome.

Late Thursday night, my husband returned from his week long trip. I vaguely remember him opening the front door, hitting the code to silence the alarm (then resetting it), banging his suitcase against the stair rail a couple of times, rustling what seemed to be the largest plastic bag in the history of all plastic bags, using the bathroom, banging his elbow on the closet door, putting his laundry in the basket and then quietly getting into bed without trying to wake me up…ummmm…did I mention the rustling of the largest plastic bag in the history of all the plastic bags?

I finally get myself back to sleep and not even forty-five minutes later am startled awake from a dead sleep by shrieks of horror coming out of my son’s room. The shrieks get louder as his big ol’ feet run at full speed to the side of my bed. My eyes try to focus on the object he has thrust into my face. It is a dark object with…eyes? Horns? Sharp teeth? What the heck is this!?

I stifle my own shrieks of horror, trying not to wake my sleeping three year-old, long enough to focus on what seems to be a stuffed black demon!

I nudge my snoring husband awake and say “Hey! Do you know what this is? Where did this come from? “(Because, I buy my children Build-a-Bear’s with cute Star Wars outfits and Kitty Princess dresses not stuffed demons).

It turns out, that the largest plastic bag in the history of all plastic bags spawned a stuffed black demon bat aptly named “Ninja Batty.” It was an Ugly Doll (yes, that is a thing) that my husband bought my son while he was on his trip. He successfully sneaked the “doll” (I use that word lightly) into my son’s room in the middle of the night because, who wouldn’t want that thing staring at them at 2:00 a.m.?

I shoved the doll under my bed and my son crawled in next to us – he was, of course, not going back into his room at this point. Maybe never.

Eventually, we all fell back to sleep.

You see, darkness can be a scary thing. Darkness can bring fear. We don’t see as clearly at night as we do in the day. Our vision is not as accurate and our emotions can get the best of us. It may not always be that literal either. Seasons in our life can feel dark, lonely and downright scary. We fear things we cannot see. We fear things we cannot control – then we run down the hall looking for someone to comfort us. For some people, waiting out darkness can seem like an eternity. It can seem like the daylight may never shine again. Darkness can consume us if we let it and it can control us if we lose our focus on the source of light.

Waiting for the light can be painful. It can be overwhelming. It can seem like the hardest thing we have ever done.

But even in the darkest hour, the light always comes. It does.

When my son woke the next morning and saw Ninja Batty by the light of day, he loved him. He set him up next to his other stuffed animals and even brought him in the car for an errand making sure to strap him in his own seat belt. He thanked his Daddy for such a cool toy and beamed with pride that he remembered him on his long trip away. The morning shed new light on the source of his fear. Sometimes we just need to adjust our eyes in the dark and wait for the light to show us the whole picture.

After we all fell back asleep, something else woke me from my slumber. I suddenly realized that if my husband bought a stuffed demon for my son, did he also bring something home for my daughter?

I nudged him again and said “hey, did you get one of those for Sissy?”

Still asleep, he mumbles “yeah, a red one…”

Great. A stuffed devil.