Delighted In, Rejoiced Over

While trying to get the children back on their school bedtime schedule, I have them tucked in at 8:00 PM.  They are hardly tired.  I tell them I'll sit in the armchair in the corner of the room while they fall asleep.

I feel like the Mother Bunny in that old favorite, Goodnight Moon (only I don't have knitting needles, and I'm not one to sit still).   

I have a gazillion things to do.  Besides making lesson plans, I could tidy the kitchen, fold another load of laundry, mop the kitchen floor--the usual. 

Instead, I stay put in that soft corner-of-the-room armchair. 

And then the most unusual thing happens.  I think it would be a good idea to sing.  It almost--don't think I'm crazy--feels like God wants me to sing. I have never been able to sing.  Couple nerves with probable tone-deafness, and you have a recipe for musical disaster. 

But I start singing every old hymn I know.  I'm singing over my daughters and imagining wonderful things for their lives.  It feels like I'm rejoicing and that I'm taking enormous delight in them with those warbling notes. 

The girls quiet down and fall fast asleep in 15 minutes.  I stay put in that chair and sing for a half hour more.  I feel closer to my family and somehow closer to a picture of how God feels about me. 

Something calls out to my soul as I sing.  I remember this verse from Zephaniah 3:17. 

The LORD your God is with you,
       he is mighty to save.
       He will take great delight in you,
       he will quiet you with his love,
       he will rejoice over you with singing."

I think of God sitting in the armchair in my own bedroom.  I fall asleep--delighted in, rejoiced over.