I just had one of those nights where you find yourself wide awake at 2 am. I’m not sure if this kind of thing is contagious, but a friend of mine was telling me the day before how he had had a sleepless night.
The very next night, like someone had sneezed right in my face, I rolled around in my bed like I was doing laps at the track.
It makes you crazy when you can’t stop thinking about something, even though you can’t solve it. It just hangs on in your mind. And even when you try to redeem the time by thinking about something else, you always come back to that unrelenting, unpleasant thought or issue.
And, after a while, you realize that unless you do something, you will not be able to sleep at all.
When I get to that stage, I just get up. I need to change my position; I need to get away from the heavy breathing of someone deep in sleep beside me.
So, the other night I got out of bed, went downstairs and started to work on my sermon for the next week. So what if it was Monday morning at 2 am? I have some of my best and most creative thoughts at that time of night.
I worked on my sermon and made great headway until about 3:30 am when I thought I’d better try to sleep. Even though I was still very awake and stimulated from my late night study time, I grabbed a blanket, laid down on the couch and turned the TV on.
If there is anything that will put me to sleep it’s the TV – not those infomercials though, they get me thinking of things I could make or buy. (I think I wrote once about the ab-dolly my son and I made after watching an infomercial.)
No, I need some kind of drama. In my flicking through the channels I came across a TV show I like, called “Castle”. It’s a detective show where a mystery writer helps the police solve crimes.
But the only crime I wanted solved was catching the guy who stole my sleep so far that night! And don’t worry, I won’t give away the show’s ending – only because I can’t … I was asleep in probably 15 minutes.
Actually, all I need is two things to put me to sleep: TV and being horizontal. It works every time. It works for Sunday NFL games, TV shows, and for romantic movies my wife sometime cons me into watching with her.
In the morning it was Lil who woke me up. I had slept through three alarms and never heard one of them. She came down wanting the room for her workout. So I trudged upstairs, and crawled into bed. But by then the day had started in my mind and it wasn’t long before I was up and moving.
… Maybe a little slower than normal, mind you.
Here’s the thing: Sometimes we are awake because we’ve seen or experienced something that has shocked us. Sometimes it’s just indigestion from bad pizza late at night. But one thing you can do to redeem the time is spend it with God. In those quiet hours, when nothing is moving except your mind, take the time to talk to God. He may have something to say to you.
That’s Life!
Paul
Question: What can trigger a sleepless night for you? Leave your comment below.