What is your “I can’t sleep” solution? Do you count sheep? Pray until you fall asleep? Do you take a Tylenol PM or melatonin to try to catch your Z’s? From my earliest memories, I recall lying in bed with numerous thoughts running through my head, disrupting my sleep. I bet many can relate, and have spent countless night hours staring at the ceiling, simply thinking. My mind is a busy place. Even when my body is exhausted, my brain finds the energy to keep going- often over negative thoughts, ideas, and feelings. Other times, it just doesn’t want to be quiet and can’t seem to settle down from the activity and interactions of my day.
Relationships cause many of my sleepless hours. “Mom moments” I would love to forget. Kid choices that cause concern and frustration. Friend conversations that didn’t go the way I expected. Foolish words that were spoken that I would love to be able to retract. Periods of time when my husband and I weren’t connecting. These are some of the issues that spin through my mind in the darkness of the night. Then there are even bigger things- health problems, finances, spiritual battles, and painful breeches in relationships that steal peace and sleep. In those moments, I desperately need to feel God’s presence with me.
When my husband left home for a little over a year, sleep often eluded me. What should I do? What should I say? Where will I go? How will things end up? Between prayer and Fixer Upper, I would eventually find rest, but often not nearly as much as my body needed. I often wonder about menopause and our kids growing into early adulthood- how are we supposed to ever get good rest? I made a list of scriptures that point us to the only plausible answer- the presence of our Heavenly Father in the middle of all of it.
What is keeping you awake at night? Do you have concerns regarding your children? Is your marriage in a state that is causing you stress and fear? Is your career giving you anxiety? Are looming health issues eating away at your peace? Is your family in the middle of a messy battle? Whatever it is, it’s eating at you, and robbing you of peace, sleep, and the joy and contentment God wants us to experience, even through our difficult seasons. And in the middle of the blackness and the stillness of night, these problems seem insurmountable. And then after a restless nights sleep, we wake and remember this promise from our Father- “His mercies never come to an end; great is Your faithfulness” (Lamentations 3:22-23 ESV).
Friends- we know He is with us in our worries and fears, yet we often don’t acknowledge His infinite ability to handle our stresses. Our enemy, the devil, seeks to disrupt our sleep and our lives with doubts and fears that our problems are too big for God to conquer. In the end, our worries only accomplish one thing- they rob us of our faith that He is willing and able to handle them for us. I am so guilty of this far too often. I wish I could write from a place of victory, but I simply can’t. I struggle too. And each night that I find myself staring at the ceiling with a heavy mind, I can only do one thing- hand it all over to my Heavenly Father who is far more capable than me to take care of it all. Dear Jesus, I thank You that no matter how many times I fall into this trap, You always meet me there and rescue me!
In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety. Psalm 4:8 ESV
It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil, for he gives to his beloved sleep. Psalm 127:2 ESV
I lay down and slept; I woke again, for the LORD sustained me. Psalm 3:5 ESV
You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you. Isaiah 26:3 ESV
Dear Heavenly Father, I confess so often failing to trust You with my problems, and instead, worrying late into the morning hours. My worry and fears don’t accomplish anything good, so help me Father, in those moments, to truly give them over to You, allowing me to rest in Your perfect ability to handle them for me. In Your precious name I pray, Amen!
