little pieces of the puzzle

Last night was awful. The longest stretch of sleep I got - prior to 4 am - was 45 minutes. I called my mommy, almost in tears, and begged her to come over to help. She brought my daddy, of course, who lovingly took Daniel to the park. Lia and I immediately crawled into bed and snoozed the morning away. I fell asleep in an instant and woke up in a much better state of mind.

And smelled burning plastic. I always sleep with the baby monitor. It's right by my pillow so that on nights where I sleep in six- and nine-minute stretches, I can open one eye just enough to see what's going on. I picked it up to move it and all but burned the skin right off my hand. Even though it was turned off, the darn thing was so hot that the plastic stand had melted to the back of the monitor. What the heck?

When Doug got home, he took it apart to discover that the battery had ruptured and the plastic had warped. Yup. We were probably moments away from setting our bed on fire.

When I looked back on the day (and preceding terrible night), I was suddenly thankful. See, had we had a good night, we were going to go to Froberg's to pick berries. If we had had a good night, I would have been several miles from home when the battery pack ruptured and set my home ablaze. Had we had a good night, I would've come home to a smoldering slab and charred fur babies and a totally destroyed home, dream, and life.

But we had a rough night. In this case, I'm beyond thankful for the sleepless night. Today, I am thankful for best-laid plans and dark circles under my eyes. And yet again, I am thankful for a God who loves me enough to protect me even when I don't even realize I need to be protected.