My son Joshua is almost four years old. He’s a happy kid and he was a really easy baby. Spoiled Bobby and I rotten. He never got up more than twice at night and started sleeping through the night at 9 weeks old! So when I got pregnant again, I figured there was no way we’d get another baby as easy as Joshua. And I was right! The first trimester of my pregnancy was awful, but it got better. Then our beautiful Sophia was born. The first couple weeks were ok, but when she was about 3 or 4 weeks old, she started really giving me a run for my money. So on the advice of my cousin Emily, who had a fussy girl herself, I got Dr. Harvey Karp’s book The Happiest Baby on the Block.

Dr. Karp is an advocate of swaddling, a process whereby you wrap your baby really tight like a burrito. He has very specific standards for it to be done “right”. His reasoning is that even though the swaddling is extremely restrictive, babies actually like it, because it reminds them of being in the womb, where their movement was also extremely restricted. Fortunately, Bobby and I had purchased a swaddler called a Miracle Blanket (www.miracleblanket.com) that made swaddling really easy and made sure you did it right. After we started swaddling Sophia religiously, she calmed down at night and slept for longer stretches. When Bobby would wrap her, she’d kind of struggle at first but then as the wrap got tighter, she’d settle down. Because her arms and legs were bound, she couldn’t smack or kick the sides of her bassinet and wake herself up. She couldn’t jerk and startle and flail her limbs either and wake herself up that way. She was wrapped up tight, safe and secure with the physical boundaries we’d given her. She finally started sleeping longer stretches for me.

A couple of weeks ago I was sitting in church during praise and worship time, when a friend whispered in my ear that she’d like me to pray for someone who was there with her family. So I started praying for this person whom I knew was going through some really tough stuff in his life. And I prayed that God would wrap him in his love. And God brought to my mind the image of Baby Sophie wrapped up tight in her Miracle Blanket. Wrapped tight, so tight she couldn’t move, yet totally at peace. And it hit me so hard, that’s why God gives us boundaries. That’s why he gives us rules and standards to live our lives by. Not because he’s trying to kill our fun, or repress our spirits, or any crap like that. He just wants to keep us safe. To give us that blissful, peaceful feeling of being protected from head to toe. Swaddled in his love. Safe from the consequences of the bad choices we might make if we struggle free of the swaddling clothes he’s wrapped us in, the rules he’s given us to follow.

It was really a blessing for me to get a little bit of a glimpse of God’s design working in our everyday lives. I’m so thankful He shared it with me, and I wanted to share it with you. It’s just too beautiful to keep to myself.