will close your eyes

It's 1:30 in the morning, and I'm not sleeping. I've had a total of 75 minutes of sleep tonight. I've been struggling this month in taking up the Lord's offer of rest. Whenever others hear of my constant struggle for sleep, they always wonder whether or not I've considered taking sedatives to knock myself out. Despite a decade-and-a-half-long battle with insomnia, I've yet to down a single capsule for assistance. It's not that I don't believe in the power of pharmaceuticals. I take advils at least once a week for headaches of various origins. But drugging yourself for the alleviation of pain seems to me radically different from drugging yourself because your brain is working overtime.

I've also come to peace with my own thorn in the flesh. I don't take lightly that perhaps this is one of my crosses to bear. I believe very strongly that the Lord gives me rest when He wants me to rest, and if I'm wide awake at a ridiculous hour of the morning, it's because He wants that to be so. And on many occasions when I'm wrestling with Him at those hours, I've keenly been aware of His presence. Perhaps He misses me, and He's sorry He's keeping me up and all that, but don't I want to hang out for a bit? Stated that way, not so much of a burden, is it?