Midnight Revelations

I've been thinking a lot about sleep lately, perhaps because it has become so elusive to me. When I was a teenager, I could easily sleep until noon. When my children were babies, I could fall asleep standing up. I've always been able to sleep anywhere ... in a chair, on the floor, in a hotel bed, on the ground in a tent ... anywhere. I've never been a "I can't sleep anywhere but in my own bed" kind of gal. But now ... now sleep seems to have become a lost art to me, perhaps because of my age, my health, my medication, my state of mind ... whatever the reason, I don't sleep very much or very well anymore.

I've tried a multitude of remedies to help me sleep, from hot tea to warm almond milk to reading to mindless television to exercise to no exercise to medication to ... you name it, I've tried it. It is beyond frustrating to wake several times each night and fight each time to get back to sleep. Generally, the best sleep I get each night comes when I only have an hour or so before I have to get up to get ready for work.

Some of you may recall a recent blog I posted called "Wee Hours Brilliance" when I talked about taking my bed off its frame and placing it directly on the floor. Still a genius idea, I might add, weeks later. Especially with a new wiener dog in the house who is a jumping maniac ... alas, once again, I digress. Back to the concept of great ideas coming in the wee hours of the night. A few nights ago, I had a revelation ... an epiphany of sorts ... when I woke just after midnight to the sound of the wind howling outside my bedroom window. The dogs were sound asleep, Julie at my feet and Ollie burrowed in under my side with his paw on my neck. As I lay in the still darkness of my room and listened to the wind, it struck me how oblivious my dogs were to what was going on ... both the wind outside the house and the wakefulness of their master right next to them. And that's when it hit me, the midnight revelation, the understanding of something truly profound and quite possibly life changing on many levels.

The revelation, you ask? The epiphany, you question? My time here on this earth is but a wisp of wind in the grand scheme of things. The way I fill my days and the tasks that seem so urgent to me each day really are pretty meaningless when I stack them up against eternity, against the sacrifice that Jesus made for me. It's only the things I do for Him that really matter ... the truth is that we are all eventually forgotten, some sooner than others, when we leave this world, and all that will really count when I step into eternity is my relationship with God's only Son. It's kind of liberating when you think about it ... just a wisp ... only a vapor ... here but for a while.

But Jesus ... Jesus is forever. And ever. And ever.