For the parent in the small hours, when love has become a night watch.

There is a tiredness in parenting that feels exactly like faithfulness. You rise early and stay up late, and the bread of toil is what you eat at the sink. The psalmist does not flatter it. He calls it vain — not because your labor is worthless, but because you have taken up the watch that belongs to the Lord alone.

Picture the city at night: the gate shut, the lamps lit above the wall. The watchman's eyes grow heavy. Here, no one needs his wakefulness to keep the walls standing. The Lord is the one who watches. The house settles and creaks; the child's breath rises and falls in the dark. The Builder has not stopped working because you closed your eyes. Sleep is not a failure of love; it is trust with your eyes closed.

Jesus says, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest — rest offered before you have fixed a single thing. On the cross he finished the heaviest labor of all, and the Father built the house again on the third day. The Father calls you beloved, and to his beloved he gives sleep.