My "middle-night reading" last night came to me when I woke up to pee, (again,) and the short walk to the bathroom had me panting. They say that this is typical with a c section; your body subconsciously takes short, shallow breaths, avoiding the pain that can come with breathing deep.
"As the deer..." I hummed a bit. And then, for the first time (how did I not notice this sooner?) I remember: my son, Alder, he, too, pants. Right now he's on an Oscillator, the very earliest of ventilators, and to illustrate its job the nurses all say it makes baby "pant." When I go to sit with him, watch him, read to him, sing to him, pray over him, it's easy to see what's him breathing and what's the oscillator doing the breathing for him. Those tiny vibrations shaking his entire, bitty body are the electronic variation. The balloon effect swelling his whole abdomen is his own doing. I don't mind how he's breathing right now, so much as my boy gets the oxygen he needs.
Somehow, the realization that Alder and I are both learning to breathe stops me in my tracks. What was once a mundane, 'yeah, I've heard this passage a gazillion times. Tell me something new?" bit of Scripture turned technicolor for me last night. I raced for my Bible and flipped to Psalm 42 (whole chapter. Italics mine):
"As the deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my food day and night,
while they say to me all the day long,
Where is your God?
These things I remember,
as I pour out my soul:
How I would go with the throng
and lead them in procession to the house of God
with glad shouts and sons of praise,
a multitude keeping festival.
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God.
My soul is cast down within me;
therefore I remember you
from the land of Jordan and of Hermon,
from Mount Mizar.
Deep calls to deep
at the roar of your waterfalls;
all your breakers and your waves
have gone over me.
By day the Lord commands his steadfast love,
and at night his song is with me,
a prayer to the God of my life.
I say to God, my rock:
'Why have you forgotten me?
Why do I go mourning
because of the oppression of the enemy?"
As with a deadly would in my bones,
my adversaries taunt me,
while they say to me all the day long,
"Where is your God?"
Why are you cast down, O my soul,
and why are you in turmoil within me?
Hope in God; for I shall again praise him,
my salvation and my God."
Satisfied for now, I took some time to pray and pump, climbed back in bed, and drifted off to sleep much more quickly than on previous nights.
And when I woke, while I showered, God revealed something else that I missed in the night, knocking the wind out of me and reducing me to a puddle like the one gathering at my feet. Alder and I, we both pant. Physiologically for the same reason, spiritually perhaps we are on different pages... who can say? But this truth holds fast for both of us: Jesus, Son of God, He pants, too. For us. For me! He pants so much for me that He, before the creation of the dawn, etched my name into the palm of His hand, and then took on flesh--fully God and fully man--so that He could suffer, pant, suffocate. Just to be with me. Not out of need for me--I offer nothing in return but my own brokenness--but out of love for me. How had I missed it? God's love for me is so strong, so incredibly intense, that it knocks the wind out of Him.
I don't think I'll ever forget that. How can I encounter a truth like that one and not be transformed by it? Even more--how can I encounter that kind of hope, that kind of love, and not proclaim it to all creation?
So be comforted and be encompassed, dear brothers and sisters, by the all consuming, passionate desire our Rock and our Redeemer has for you. He will not abandon you, leave or forsake you. He will pine for you with a love so deep that you could drown in it a thousand times. And that. That is enough.