Jesus Loves Me, This I Know

I feel like we are going backwards with Eliana and her sleeping patterns...at the beginning of this year I could put her down at night and leave the room and she would go on to sleep.  It was so nice (and early!  7:15 or so) and I had plenty of time to get my other kids ready for bed and read to them, before beginning my nightly clean-up and anything else I had in mind to accomplish. Somewhere along the line (it's always fuzzy, that somewhere place, isn't it?) she became very clingy at night and I stupidly lovingly obliged her sweet hugs and stayed in the room with her until she fell asleep in her bed.  This was fine and I still could get the others to bed, but over time the whole bedtime thing just got later and later; it took longer and longer. Now she can make herself stay awake forever, and she wants me to hold her ("Hold you!  Hold you?"she says over and over, and it's pitiful), and she'll scream and she's sad and she's mad, and I think,"What should I do?" Many might say,"Just leave the room."  Well, we've just moved.  We're in a new house, and things are not in their proper place yet.  We've had late evenings.  My parents just left.  There are some things that are very unsettling in her little life, and I don't want to do something that will cause her great fear or anxiety (athough I did put her through swimming/floating lessons...).  I want her to eventually like lying down in her bed and getting cozy with her blanket or bear or doll. Sometimes she will lie right down and look at her books in her bed, and talk to me a little.  She might want me to hold her for a minute, give me a big squeeze, a little kiss, and then she'll snuggle in.  I never know on any given night which way it will go. Tonight it was the crying, clinging route.  I held her for a while and told her how sleepy I she was, and all the sweet things I always say at bedtime.  She didn't buy any of it.  Her money was on dragging this out as long as she could.  She fussed; I got exasperated.  Things weren't going well... So, I sang.  I'm no Julie Andrews but my kids like it when I sing.  I started singing Jesus Loves Me and she got very quiet and put her forehead on mine.  When I finished the song she said,"Jesus?"  I asked if she wanted me to sing it again and she said,"'gain."  So I did...and as I softly sang those simple words I listened to them myself.  "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.  Little ones to him belong; they are weak, but he is strong.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus loves me.  Yes, Jesus loves me, the Bible tells me so." Those words, so simple but so powerful, calmed my own spirit down.  My tension eased a little.  I held Eliana as I sang her those words, and listened with my heart to their beautiful message.  I needed that reminder myself.   I am little, he is great; I belong to him.  I am weak, he is strong; I can rest in him.  And yes, he loves me.