Where Is God When Sleep Won’t Come?

The useful part

Nighttimes are full of these elementary calculations when you're an insomniac. Some seasons are worse than others, but the worst of my life began just after my daughter's first birthday, when her two older brothers were three and four. I went to bed that night as usual, only to wake two hours later and never fall back asleep.

How it works

• It's difficult to overstate just how desperate I felt when I'd still be awake at 4:00am, 5:00am, and then 6:00am when the alarm would sound and the day would officially begin.
• I strove to "remember [him] upon my bed and meditate on [him] in the watches of the night" (63:6).
• I began to skip entire nights of sleep, sometimes as many as three times a week.
• I hoped doctors could fix me, but as the weeks stretched into months and the months into years, I realized this was no short-term trial.
• Though my hand was "stretched out without wearying," begging God for relief, it was as if God held "my eyelids open," denying me the sleep I craved (77:2, 4).

Details worth keeping

If I fall asleep right now, I can still get three hours. Insomnia has been my constant companion since high school. God trained me, as he has countless others of his children, to "kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages." 1 Lay Your Hand Over Your Mouth I turned to the Psalms, feeling a certain kinship with those who called out to God long after the sun had gone down.