The Sacredness of Sleep(lessness)

It’s 4:32am and I’ve been awake for 2.5 hours.  I’ve entered the 9th month of pregnancy and with it the inevitable season of sleeplessness.  Despite the fact that I’m exhausted every night–somehow I lie here, thinking, unable to find sleep.  I wonder what my labor will be like this time…I need to remember to pack my cereal this time so I don’t have to eat that awful hospital food…what do I need to do to get ready?…I should pay that garbage bill tomorrow…oh and I need to change our garbage to weekly February 1st since we’ll have two in diapers…I wonder if I should buy more newborn diapers, 2 packages will only last a week…in a week Jeff will be teaching at the junior high retreat, I need to pray for him…I pray that our houses sell, I’m so ready to nest and settle and feel some permanence…I wonder if the people who saw the house today will buy it…mortgage rates are sure low right now, I wonder what they are…ugh, these mild contractions are annoying…I’m so glad we have the humidifier on…I wonder if Dutch is ok without his humidifier…I hope we all get healthy soon…

You get the picture. 

First of all, sleep.  Sleep is sacred, sleep is spiritual!  I remember in college being so overloaded, trying to do so many things, involved in so many ministries, I was getting overwhelmed, discouraged, and burdened. I remember Ryan Sugai saying, “Kari, sleep is spiritual.  Get some sleep.”  I’ll always remember that.  Since then I’ve often though of Psalm 127:2 which says, “It is vain for you to rise up early,To sit up late, To eat the bread of sorrows; For so He gives His beloved sleep.”  Rest, peace, sleep, is a gift from God.

I also have been known to tout the benefits of “a nap and a snack.”  After Elijah’s famous victory (God’s famous victory through Elijah) on Mount Carmel, rather than running victory laps and dancing for joy, the legendary man of God finds himself overwhelmed by fear, exhausted, discouraged, despairing even of life.  “I have had enough, Lord…take my life,” is what he says (1 King 19:5)!  How’s that for overwhelmed and discouraged?  And what does He do?

By the grace of God, he lies down and goes to sleep.  Then an angel wakes him up and provides him with…food.  A cake of bread and some water.  Elijah needed a snack.  Then he lay back down and slept again (two naps!).  Then an angel woke him up and told him to eat some more (two snacks!).  And strengthened by this he traveled 40 days and 40 nights.  How’s that for restored?!  I’ve often thought how big the monsters seem when we are hungry, weary, and sleep-deprived. A nap and a snack may be the most spiritual thing one can do to persevere in the race of faith.

But then there are times like these. Sleepless times.  And these are sacred too. Jesus was known to spend all night praying on occasion (Luke 6:12).  As with sickness, God can whisper to us in these moments when all is silent and still.  I cannot say that I enjoy sleepless nights, but I do ask God for the grace to take my wandering thoughts, anxieties, and questions about the future, and turn them to him through prayer.  And in one short month, as I hold my new little daughter in my arms, another season of sleepless nights will begin, and another season of sacredness will begin.  So now it is 5am.  I think I’ll have some cheerios and take a quick nap before dawn…