Sleepless nights

All night long I flood my bed with weeping and drench my couch with tears (Psalm 6:6).

I often look at my sleeping cat with envy. She can just plop down anywhere and take a peaceful snooze. I find it hard to take naps—even when there’s time for one, I usually doze without actually falling asleep. When I go to bed at night, I have to have darkness and quiet before I can drift off; sometimes the process of getting ready for bed wakes me up enough that I have to read for awhile in order to get groggy again. And if my wife gets up in the morning before I do, I might as well get dressed because I can’t fall back asleep.

A couple of years ago, a medicine I was taking gave me bad dreams—the kind that wake you up at 3:00 am and keep you from getting a good night’s rest. Sometimes heartburn has kept me up; other times nausea or a hacking cough have prevented me from getting the rest I needed. But of all the things that make it hard to sleep peacefully, the worst one by far is anxiety.

I’m sure you’ve experienced it. You want to go to sleep but you don’t, because you just can’t shut off your brain. You keep going over the mistakes you made earlier in the day; you replay situations in your head, trying to figure out what you could have said or done differently. Or you fret about tomorrow, making lists of what needs to be done, rehearsing how you’re going to confront a problem, or making contingency plans in case things totally fall apart. By the time that morning comes, you are tired, crabby, and ill prepared to face the challenges of the day.

Sleep is vitally important. While you sleep, your body flushes away toxins and devotes its’ energy to healing. While you sleep, your mind sorts through the chaos of another day and files things away in memory—sort of like rebooting a computer. Now, you know that if you leave a computer running for days without shutting it off or rebooting, weird things start happening; the same is true of a mind that doesn’t get the rest it needs.

You can fall asleep by taking a pill or drinking alcohol, but these remedies don’t deal with the mental turmoil keeping you awake. For mind-healing rest, you need to relax and let go of your problems. You need Jesus. He can forgive you for the mistakes that burden you with guilt. He can lend you wisdom and strength to face the challenges of the coming day. When you can’t sleep, it’s a great time for the Bible and for prayer.