Sleep

After 7 months and 22 days of not sleeping with peace each night, sleeping well, or even sleeping at all, I am finally sleeping. As I have stated before, I am a person who needs 8 to 9 hours of sleep to function at my best. I have also always been the type that enjoys a good nap, especially on Sundays, but naps had also become something that my body could not do. There was inner turmoil, a replaying of events of the first week that Michael died, replaying of memories, and just an overall feeling of anxiety that continued to play in my mind at any time when my body would stop to try to rest.

I have looked forward to bedtime each night since February 22 because it was the end of another day. I would think to myself, “I made it through today." A day of trials, hard decisions, parenting alone, living without Michael, missing him, going through the motions of what it takes to make it through each day, and a daily end of this very difficult season of life through which we are having to walk. I feel that the end of each day brings me one day closer to end of this terribly painful season of death and mourning. I looked forward to the close of each day because the day was done, but then would dread the next part of the 24 hour day because, with it, came it’s own set of obstacles to overcome.

At night, I was alone in my thoughts and feelings. The rest of the world was quiet, but my mind and spirit were in a full state of motion. My state of “aloneness” is more pronounced in the dark hours of the night. The dark hours of the night is what time it was when I received visitors knocking on my door to learn about Michael’s accident that had just occurred. In the dark hours of the night my mind would race through the trauma of the whole situation. Sleeping would come in short spurts then I would suddenly wake up and it would take sometimes an hour or more to go back to sleep...and this would happen several times a night. I would go to the bathroom several times and get drinks of water to just give me something to do. I had forgotten what it felt like to fall asleep with ease, sleep peacefully and rise with a feeling of having rested. When I would wake up in the morning, I had the same thoughts that I had at the close of each day, “I made it through another night.” I was being tormented for 24-hour periods without any down time to shut off my thoughts and emotions.

I went to a women’s retreat two weeks ago in Colorado given by Ransomed Heart ministries and John and Stasi Eldredge. It was upon returning from this retreat that my sweet sleep and rest returned back to me. Several women prayed over me while I was there, and I don’t mean, “Dear Lord, please be with Jene’ while she sleeps and help her walk through this time.” These women prayed against all agreements I had made with the enemy over this season of death and mourning, they fought spiritual warfare on my behalf, they targeted specific areas of battles that I had been encountering around the clock and they did it with confidence and spiritual discernment. I felt differently with each passing hour of the retreat. After two nights back at home, my body began to rest.

I can now get in bed and feel sleepy. I fall asleep within thirty minutes and make it through the night without getting up to go to the bathroom. I sleep hard. When I wake up in the morning, I feel like I have been in the deepest sleep I have known. I don’t feel rested yet because I am so far behind on rest. Yesterday, I even had the need to take a nap. I did not get to take one, but I was glad that I felt like I needed one and could have slept had my head hit the pillow. The last month has finally shown a slight turn towards the early stages of an upswing in the horizon. The elephant has been lifted off of my chest. I am beginning to breathe again. I have journeyed through what could be the most frightening part of the valley of the shadow of death. I will fear no evil, for He is with me. Dear God, this is hard. The angst, the moaning, the pouring of tears that have flooded my bed, the gut wrenching pain, the birth pains with no celebration of life, …..asking why or trying to understand does not bring peace. As John Eldredge said at the retreat, “Understanding is overrated.” Just trust God, keep moving forward, and know that He is for you. We may gain understanding later, after we have come out of it. Asking God for comfort and His presence, and staying alert to the enemy and his spiritual attacks that come in the valley is how to pull through the battle. There is a battle….this is a battle…..it is dark and is taking every bit of my strength, but I am finally witnessing some small victories. Psalm 3:5, “I lay down and slept, yet I woke up in safety, for the Lord was watching over me.”