Sleep Deprivation

I awoke last night to hear my husband reading "Goodnight Moon" to our daughter and I was genuinely thankful in my heart to know that he had heard Sarah before I had and was letting me sleep. That was at 1:30. He lulled her to sleep but then about an hour later, she awoke again. Then I took my turn and after a video, a couple of books, and a bottle, we were back to bed around 4:30 am. Then around 5:45, Sarah screamed apparently from either a night terror or teething. She just needed to be held close and with some gentle swaying, she fell back into a deep sleep. We slept until 8:30am and then thankfully were able to take a nap from 12 to 3pm! So the day has not been very productive, but is that the same thing as useful? How funny that this night and day has followed this course as I had began to make some resolutions about becoming more 'useful'.

am I useful?

My husband and I were discussing today's sermon about the Hot, Cold, and Lukewarm passage in the third chapter of Revelations. From his time in Turkey and a sermon he once heard while at Miami University, he explained that this passage was in part about being useful. Apparently Laodicea had to get its water via extensive aqueducts whereas one nearby metropolis was known for its mountain springs with cold water and another with hot springs for spa enthusiasts. Not only were the Laodiceans wealthy with tremendous linen, banking, and medical industries, they were apparently not allowing these resources to be used for God's glory. They also failed to realize their need of God.

I found these notions to be interesting as being a mom to a one year old is a challenging life of which the 'useful' output is not always easily measurable. At the same time, I'm working when I have free time on my dissertation and that is not nearly producing as tremendously great measurable volumes of work as I would aspire to (i.e. 30 some pages written in the past 6+ months!) So now I want to spend some time this week reflecting on what it means to be useful and asking myself if I am useful to God, available for His use, and trying to spend some intentional time laying myself at his feet each day to be reminded of his rightful ownership of my life. Who owns me? What is my focus? What does it mean to be useful?