Late naps. While they seem like a good idea at the time, they never really are.

Case in point: Lilli fell into a dead sleep when I laid her down for a “little nap” at 3:30. At that point I would’ve usually had her power through it to an early bedtime, but she’d been in high performance mode all day, with a last-minute pop-in from her great-grandparents and her cousin-more-like-an-aunt. She’d ridden the new pony, climbed through plumbing trenches with her Aunt Maddie and even poked around in the dirt with her Papa. Girlfriend was pooped. So, she slept for 2 hours and we let her.

Big mistake.

It caused a later dinner, and by the time the bedtime chimes were ringing she was in full throttle, speeding around the house like her last name was Earnhardt. She was talking a hundred miles an hour, most of her words forming questions:

“Mimmie, can I have your iPad?”

“Mimmie, can I have some apple juice?”

“Mimmie, where’s Maddie? (pause for a moment of silence and quiet reflection) I miss her.”

It had been a full 5 hours since she’d seen her, which is apparently FAR too long.

“Mimmie, can I play blocks?”

“Mimmie, will you sleep in my bed?”

Instead of sitting quietly in the rocker for books, as is her norm, she asked questions about those, too, interrupting every few words. At long last, I wrangled her into bed, said prayers, sang a couple of songs, and on my way out of the room…

“Mimmie, I have one more question…”

As I finally got ready for bed, myself, I thought “She certainly is human.”

And she is, isn’t she?

We always seem to have just one more question. We always want to know more.

And why.

And when.

And how.

We are rarely ever satisfied, either, continuing to ask, like an almost three-year-old, until we get the answer we want.

But, sometimes the answer we want isn’t THE answer.

In fact, we often have to suck it up and deal with the fact that it’s bedtime even when we’re not tired, and that the One in Charge knows what’s best.

Yes, sometimes we have to realize that the One in Charge is not us.

I’ve found that the more my age increases, the more glad I become that I’m not the one in charge. Frankly, I stink at it. The answers I come up with to life’s questions all seem to be lacking somehow. Like the bright idea of a 2-hour toddler nap in the late afternoon, for instance.

Everyone at our house will be turning in early tonight, you can rest assured. When my head hits the pillow, it will be in trusting silence, thankful to the One in Charge, without even one more question on my lips.

“But I am trusting you, O Lord,  saying, ‘You are my God!’  My future is in your hands…” Psalm 31:14-15 NLT

“Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.” Psalm 37:5 ESV

“Quiet down before God,  be prayerful before him.” Psalm 37:7 MSG

“Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.” Romans 8:26-28 MSG