Emerald has been a by-the-book baby. At 2½ months, she has smiled through all manner of schedules and a wide variety of loud commotion. Always even-tempered, she’s amazed us with her calm demeanor through restaurant meals, shopping trips, and doctor’s appointments. And she’s been endlessly patient with lots of cousin-cuddles, kisses, and head-pats.

Tonight, however, her sunny disposition disappeared, and nothing satisfied her. Birgitta and I took turns trying to quiet her in what seemed like an interminable effort to get her to sleep, though in reality it lasted only 2 hours.

Birgitta had gone through Emerald’s regular bath and bedtime routine, after which she’d fallen asleep and been put into her bassinet as usual. This child has slept beautifully through-the-night 3 times in the past week alone, once for a 10½ stretch.

So it surprised us when she began fidgeting in her bed immediately, eventually bringing herself up to a full roar. Birgitta picked her up and tried each of the usual soothers: pacing, bouncing on the exercise ball, rocking, patting, and shush-shush-shushing. Nothing worked.

I tried too, but Emerald refused to be calmed, stiffening her legs and flailing her arms while continuing with earsplitting screams. My theory was that whatever had first bothered her (a burp, an intestinal bubble, a sudden noise) was long gone, and she kept hollering just because she had started and couldn’t stop.

Although adults don’t usually open their mouths and yell full-power like babies do, we sometimes wish we could. We object to something undesirable as loud as we dare, and when the facts don’t quickly change, we get carried away with our responses.

But just like Emerald no longer remembered why she was crying, we can work ourselves into the same kind of frenzy for no good reason too, making a mountain out of a molehill.

It isn’t that God doesn’t want us to cry. I can think of 3 good reasons when he does:

• when we’re mourning over our own sin
• when we’re sharing in another person’s sorrow
• when we’re calling out to him from a place of deep deficiency

In these instances our sobbing has positive purposes, which causes the Lord to rush in and minister to the need at hand.

Tonight Birgitta and I came to Emerald’s aid, despite believing she had no good reason to scream. But she’s just a baby, so we gave her the benefit of the doubt. Eventually she wore herself out and fell asleep by default.

We’re still puzzled over why she cried so hard for so long, but thankfully God is never puzzled over our crying, always knowing which good reason is behind it.

And in his great love for us, he’s often willing to comfort us even when we’re crying hard for no good reason at all.

“Let all who seek God’s help be encouraged. For the Lord hears the cries of the needy.” (Psalm 69:32-33)