Oh what a night!

Someone should write a song called dat!!

Long term readers will know of my battle against sleeplessness, that goes on and on, tied in with various and multiple ways with my illlness making sleep hard to come by much of the time. A good night I normally sleep arouond five am, for a few hours if I'm fortunate. I think at some times, everyone experiences inability to sleep or being unable for one reason or another. I used to struggle through the nights often in tears, often in torment of Spirit, often with dark thoughts that seemed to keep yesterday alive in the here and now. But I have felt the last year or two, that night times in particular can be times for deep spiritual reflection and mediations, that can have interuptions or distractions during the day, whereas at night, it doesn't happen. I spend my nights reading, and praying, and when praying doesn't seem very doable, (I confess to struggling to be able to pray well at all, and its a constant battle against the flesh, I'm wretchedly poor but keep keeping on) but then I listen to sermons, when the other two are not doable to any extent. And the nights of a thousand terrors which can so exist in my soul in the most destructive way, become nights of a thousand delights or joys. A sense of my redeemer redeeming me not just despite the struggle through affliction but to a large extent because of it in many ways. The visions and what often seems like cries of the devil that exist in my world still more than I care to admit, when my brain misfires and conjures up "other voices" lose their power to torment, lose the hold on my emotions as the peace that passes all understanding takes grip, and tho the reader can only imagine what living this life is like as a reality just as I may only imagine any of yours, when you experience it first hand, you know something supernatural and outside of human reason or logic, or understanding is tending one and caring for one, and the horrors that can at times seem forever just below the surface get smothered in a feeling of goodness, and power. Not power to do anything or make anything of any worth, but to know the extent of ones often torment and angst, to feel it lose its grip and for goodness and delight and joy to take its place, you know that it has to be power outside of our understanding. So, yes, sleepless nights can be hard and long, and weary making. Yet, on the flip side, they can be times of spiritual treasure, where you unearth what seems a distant memory of feeling human, or not trapped in a mind and body that is holding one prisoner, and you experience some real liberty in Christ, even whilst still locked up in ones prison. |