God with sore arms

I ache today, because of yesterday--
yesterday when I held my nine-month-old nephew,
sick, crying, tired, wanting his mother.
He was so tired his cries were like a child talking in his sleep.
"He's half asleep and doesn't know it," I said.

It took him awhile.
I didn't feel like home to him.
My arms weren't right, my chest wasn't right,
my voice wasn't right.
His head would sink down against me
but he'd jerk it up again,
determined not to let himself go.
His eyes would close,
but not for long.

But then his weariness got the best of him.
He relaxed in my arms and let his head rest,
till a few minutes later he woke himself up
crying for his mother.
I wasn't what he wanted.

Then he slept.
He slept so deeply that his pacifier fell out of his mouth,
and still he slept.
Resting on a stranger's chest,
cradled in a foreign love.
My arms ached.

I wouldn't have traded it for the world.

And now here am I, stumbling on,
sick at heart, weary, crying,
determined to stay awake and get through this.

It strikes me that God would love to have sore arms
from putting me to sleep.