I don’t sleep…well. I don’t sleep well enough to feel rested, ever, these days. In fact, it is 2:45am, as I type this. I’m tired.
Every night, around 2am, I wake up, and my brain starts going. I think about how similar this is to something I experienced when I was pregnant with my first child. When I was pregnant with George, I would move all day, and then finish dinner, finish cleaning the kitchen, maybe take a bath, and then lay down to go to sleep. I would get still for the first time in the day, and the baby would start moving. It was not subtle movement. These were acrobatics. It was like he knew that it was safe for him to move when I was still.
My heart does the same thing. The reality is, it’s easy to shut off your brain, but it’s not easy to shut off your heart. When I lay awake, I don’t think about work, or the things I need to do.
I think about pain. I think about how to alleviate it. I think about the times my heart has hurt the most. I think about what I can take responsibility for, and what I can’t. I think about the difference between the self-aware and the rest of the world. I think about people who are content to live in the dark and those that embrace the light. I think about why we’re all here and what I need to accomplish while I’m here. I think about how the world jades (breaks – a word that can be used interchangeably) some and not others. I think about the ones who don’t think about those things at all…and how it makes them, equally, simple and fortunate.
I think about the fact that we are all built the same way, with the same equipment, and how me make choices that change the trajectory of our hearts in the world. Some are awake. Some are knowingly numb…they choose it.
These are deep things to be thinking about in the middle of the night.
I think most people can identify with this, and it’s a real Truth Bomb that is painful to admit…
Most of the time, my packed days, intense work schedule, and constant movement have more to do with my avoidance of getting still enough to feel, than they do for my desire to move. Isn’t this true for most people?
Because if we feel, then we might hurt, and in this world, we can’t actually feel anything without the greater feeling that we need to do something about that feeling. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of hurting. So sitting still in those thoughts is hard.
The world says simplified things like “You just need to be happy….just do what makes you happy,” without any consideration of the aftermath of that mindset. Do what makes you happy….in the moment, even if those choices hurt us in the long run.
Ha! It is the biggest lie, and we buy into this bullshit. We buy into it because being “happy” calls for a numbed, copacetic, unaware existence of looking to the things around us to give fleeting moments of comfort. It does not call for any profound commitment to any belief of rock of truth in our existence. It calls for a weakness in surrender to the things of the world…that’s it.
Y’all, it’s easy to be “happy.”
Jewelry makes me happy.
Pasta makes me happy.
A clean house makes me happy.
These things make us comfortable, but these things cannot bring us joy.
Oh, and there’s a big difference, by the way! Don’t fool yourself. Happiness is fleeting. Joy brings you peace. They are quite different.
Here’s the catch, though: in order to attain peace, we have to walk through the hard stuff. We have to hurt. We have to grow. We have to heal.
And healing is hard work. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves.
But IS healing hard work? Is it?
Think about how you heal from sickness or surgery.
It’s actually just a lot of rest. Drinking water. Watching TV… It’s a lot of waiting.
Do we wait to be healed or do we run the rat race of life, thinking we can do it ourselves, without the help of something/someone greater?
Lily Tomlin said,”The trouble with being in the rat race is that even if you win, you’re still a rat.” This is one of my favorites….so true! It’s exactly how I see the world…frantically running, fighting, and doing. As rats, running this race, we aren’t actually helping our cause much. We’re just getting more and more tired. I am exhausted.
Sometimes, it is just as important to get still as it is to move. I have to remind myself when I feel these things, in the middle of the night, as my mind races to find the “answer,” when I’ve already got one.
The answer is in another one of my favorite quotes from Proverbs. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to him, and he will make your paths straight.”
In the moments when we are still, and hurting, and it’s uncomfortable, we can choose a couple of things. We can fight like hell for control, or we can lean in, and let the Healer do his work. In the times that I fight it, overthink it, overdo, and grasp for control, I actually feel more out of control. It feels a lot like drowning to me….flailing until my body finally goes limp, and I say “I’m done. I give up. Help me. Please!”
If we’re being honest, we’d admit that getting still is the greater fight for most of us, because it feels a lot like helplessness, unless you know with all certainty that there is someone there fighting for you.
Who is your someone that fights for you?
Is it you….who fights with all that is humanly possible until you drown?
Is it your money, that will eventually run out?
It is your happy moments that won’t sustain you forever, as all of your moments cannot be happy?
Is it a God who never fails?
Get still. Lean in. Rest in this last truth bomb.
“Our heart is restless until it rests in You.” ~ St. Augustine
Now…the hard part. Letting go.
Let’s try.