Now, I don’t know about you, but I have this issue with turning my brain to sleep mode. At around eleven every night, I go to bed with best laid plans: I will fall asleep early and wake up refreshed and ready to go. Nightly ablutions, clothes’ changes and final dog petties occur. Then, I lie my head down and close my eyes, say my prayers and goodnight to God.
The problem?
My brain—much like a teething toddler—isn’t ready to sleep.
It starts simply enough. What meetings are scheduled the next day? Thinking ensues. What do those meetings entail? Thinking continues. How can I involve more people in the life of the church? Thinking. Why don’t people want to come to church? Thinking. Why don’t more people come to church activities? Thinking. Are they the wrong activities? Thinking. Where did that family go? Thinking. Did I do something to push them away? Thinking. I wonder if I can fix the door on the side of the house. Thinking. Why is Pluto a planet again? Why wasn’t it? Where is Pluto? Hey, that dog from Disney is named Pluto. I wonder if he knows he’s a planet…
Thoughts full. Brain buzzing. Wakey wakey, time to ponder the inane and important, alike. See you at three, sleep.
After reading that dumpster fire of nightly ritual, how do most of you fare when trying to fall asleep? Same? Different? Does anyone know about Pluto? I imagine that many of us suffer from an overactive thought deluge when trying to find rest from a full day. I don’t have an immediate answer for it, either, except for obtaining some sort of sleep aid umbrella—aka, Ambien. However, I do have some daytime thoughts about nighttime struggles.
Instead of being think-ful (not a word, hush), what if we concentrated on being thankful? I suspect that many of us speak to God prior to bed, yes? If not, see me soon. But, if my suspicions are correct, then that conversation after a long day could be the key to obtaining the elusive prey of sleep we all constantly stalk. We begin with the worries and woes of life, asking for aid and absolution. Normal thinkful (again, not a word) stuff. Then, comes the thanking; this is the part where I think we can truly lean on God to help us fall blissfully asleep without the ponderings of astronomical proportions.
Last week, I talked about thanking God for the grass. If you didn’t hear that sermon, you can find it by clicking here. (if you receive the newsletter by mail, the url is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sfLDtmA8sI) But, back to the grass…
Praying in that fashion is more for the exhausted and overwhelmed. This isn’t that. What I’m writing about now is a way in which to retrain your thinkfulness to thankfulness. What if, instead of trying to think your way through the myriad and many obstacles of tomorrow, you concentrated on the miracles that happened today? Quite frankly, thanking God for blessings seems like an arduous task at first—we don’t know necessarily how to begin. But let me tell you, once you do? It goes quickly and it takes forever with a capital EVER. Being thankful overrides the impetus to be overthinkful. (definitely not a word). That thankfulness lulls us into a place where we begin to appreciate the things that are going well in life, the miracles that happen every day, and the people surrounding us with love and support.
Tomorrow can wait. We say it every Sunday: “Do not fear what may happen tomorrow…” My best advice for those of you struggling with prayer life, with the happenings of life in general, and the insomnia that those two create, is this…
Don’t be thinkful. Be thankful. Tomorrow is another gift, not a curse.
Faithfully,
Fr. Sean+