Forced to Rest

It’s no real secret that I am tired all the time. Literally. I wake up tired and with a headache and that’s how it is all day long. I’m learning to be content with that. But what most people don’t know is that I have a really hard time resting. I can’t remember the last time I took a nap. My friends tell me all the time, “Oh honey, why don’t you just go curl up with a blanket and take a nap?” And I will smile and say that sounds like a wonderful idea. Because it really does.

I’m on three strong medications that CAUSE sleepiness and wear me out but the one also has a side effect of insomnia that really works. No naps for me. Sad day. I have been known to be so tired that I tell my friends I wish they would just knock me out so my body could get some rest!

Which actually brings me to the point of this post. (Don’t worry, I was getting there.) A month or so ago, I was in a Sunday School class on prayer. And it was a wonderful class. One of the lessons was on praying Scripture and we were talking about Psalm 23. As an example, my teacher asked if someone would be willing to pray that passage and an older lady at my church volunteered.

But as she prayed, something new struck me. Verse 2: “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.”

Hmmm makes me? Like forces me to lie down, to rest? If I’m honest, there have been many times in my life when I don’t want to rest. When I get so crazy busy and I have seen God slow me down. And if I’m totally honest, I didn’t like it. I wanted to do things my way at my speed. But now that physical rest is SO desirable and out of reach for me, I recognize the importance of it.

But of even greater importance is spiritual rest. Verse 3: “He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.”

Whenever I read this I’m reminded of how utterly thankful I am for soul-restoration! How when I’m worn out and tired, my SOUL can still be at rest because of Jesus Christ! How when I can’t find the energy to do anything, somehow I find energy in talking about my Savior and his incredible love! What a thing to praise the Lord for.

 

Thoughts from 1am

I used to shake my head and laugh at those bloggers who stayed up till all hours of the night writing out their posts because I knew that would never be me. And yet here I am at 1am in the morning, typing out a post because I’ve tried everything else to fall asleep and it’s not working.

I have a very good night time routine. I don’t eat anything in the late evening, stay off electronics right before bed, and I’m usually in bed between 10-10:30pm. I brush my teeth, take my meds, read my devos, and lay down. Usually my meds knock me out within 10 minutes and it’s all good. But tonight it’s not working. I laid down and a very intense feeling of rage came over me. Why? Good question. I’ve been trying to figure that out for two and a half hours. And why it has happened the last two nights also. A feeling of frustration and anger for no reason that makes me restless and unable to fall asleep. Then I remembered.

When I first started taking these meds, my emotions got really out of whack. Like, seriously bad. Picture the stereotypical teenager in puberty and that’s pretty much what I was like. One minute I would be nice and cheerful and the next ready to scream at the top of my lungs with no cause for the change. It was SO frustrating to suddenly feel out of control of my emotions but still be responsible for them! A friend of mine suggested that I start taking a natural supplement, St. John’s Wort. I’m kind of wary of natural remedies (apologies to every lady at my church!) because I haven’t had any success with them and get tired of hearing how they will solve all your problems. But this lady is an ER nurse (plus my doctor agreed that it was a good idea) so I begrudgingly decided to try it for a few weeks and my emotions leveled out to a manageable degree. I haven’t stopped taking it in probably a year or so.

Until Wednesday when I ran out and forgot to get more! Guess when the issues started. Yeah…

You know, sometimes I hate taking meds and that supplement because I don’t like feeling dependent on them. But this week has reminded me that the side effects of my medications are real and I can’t ignore them. We live in a fallen world where things: hearts, bodies, brains, etc are broken and need help. It’s okay to use what God has given us to help them. It’s good to take the meds and be grateful for them.

Okay, that’s all. Now maybe since I got that off my mind, I can get some sleep! Goodnight all!

 

No Heat Produces Faith, Faith Produces Heat?

Those that know me know that I love to sleep in the cold. Not like 50 degrees cold, I’m the person who keeps her window open all winter long. I froze my water bottle shut one night this winter and I have frozen a whole cup of water in my room before. Not that I like BEING cold- I like to pile on lots of blankets and snuggle under the weight of all of them. Now I have this magical thing called an electric blanket and I flip that on ten minutes before bed and then turn it off when I get in and everything is very cozy. I just like the air around me to be cold.

So ever since I moved into my apartment, my routine has been to go to the thermostat at night, flip the heat off, open my bedroom window, and crawl into bed. In the morning there is a very particular science to things. You see, while I love sleeping in 30 degree weather, I DO NOT love showering in that kind of temperature. So in the morning, I set my alarm for about a half hour before I need to shower and when it goes off, I reach over, close the window, dash out and flip the heat back on and crawl into my nice warm bed while everything heats back up. About a half hour later, my apartment is at a livable temperature and I can get up and shower. Works like a dream.

Yesterday, I did the same thing I’ve done every single morning. I dashed out, flipped the heat switch and crawled back in bed. I showered and it wasn’t until I was putting my shoes on about 5 minutes before I should be leaving for work that I thought, “Boy, it’s still kind of chilly in here!” So I checked the thermostat and sure enough: 57 degrees. I thought to myself that it sure was taking a lot longer than normal to heat up this morning but I didn’t really have time to think much about it since I had to leave for work.

It was a short but stressful day of work. Actually, it has been quite a long week and I’m ready for it to be over. Nothing big, just a lot of small things that piled up. As I walked home from work, I was freezing: it was 35 degrees and really windy and when I opened up my apartment door I was met with a blast of cool air. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr. Not a very good welcome home. The temperature hadn’t moved since that morning.

I played with settings on the thermostat thinking maybe I had accidentally bumped one of them and sat in moody silence on my couch in my coat and hat for forty-five minutes, listening for the heat. It would kick on but then 4-5 minutes later shut off and the temperature wouldn’t change. Finally, in a grumpy, complaining mood, I went downstairs and talked to my landlord’s daughter, who said she would ask her Dad as soon as he was done with chemo for the day. Which just made me feel worse. To be fair, they did bring me a space heater, but when you have 9.5ft ceilings, that doesn’t do much.

So I decided to go for a walk, thinking that a brisk walk MUST be warmer than sitting in the cold. Wrong. I forgot how windy it was and several miles later, I arrived home again to my cold apartment with a very cold body and hurting head. I spent the rest of the afternoon curled under my electric blanket, very grumpy.

So this morning, I got up, and (not very hopefully) turned the heat on, and crawled back in bed as usual. Still wasn’t working and it was even colder. Finally I started crying. Don’t laugh- as previously mentioned, it’s been a rough and frustrating week. And I cried out, “Lord! Can’t I at least have some heat?! I just want to be warm! I’m so freaking cold!” And right then, I heard the heat kick on in one of its fake-you-out tricks. I’m pretty sure I rolled my eyes at my vent in disgust. About 15 minutes later I realized the heat was still running. This time it hadn’t kicked off like all the other times.

You know who I felt like? Job. But not Job when he is proved righteous and his friends proved wrong. Not Job when he says he hasn’t done anything wrong. Job when God says to him, “Uh, who do you think you are talking to me like that?” Yeah, I felt pretty small and I meekly said, “Thank you, Lord.” About 45 minutes later my apartment was at 70 degrees and the heat is still working. I checked with my landlord and the repairman hadn’t come out yet.

That was a pretty fast answer to prayer. Gosh, why wasn’t that my first response when I found that it wasn’t working?? Why did the prayer come out of desperation instead of being the first thought? I think that’s how a lot of believers live. Prayer is like our back-up resource instead of our first weapon. I want to be so close to God that talking to him about it is always what happens first. I don’t want it to be an after-thought. First thought, constant thought, all day.

 

Out of Sorts

Let me preface this story by saying: I’m an early bird. I usually wake up around 5-5:30 each morning and get a good start on the day. That being said, I am NOT a night person. To wake up that early, I normally head to bed around 9:30-10:30. Somehow, that schedule didn’t happen this week. I ended up going to bed late every night. Really late. Like midnight late. I just had stuff to do each night like volleyball, learning to process a deer, movie time with a visiting friend, and game night at a friend’s house. Usually I leave things early so I can go to bed but for some reason I thought I could do it all this week. So did I adjust my wake up time? Nope, I still was up at 5:30 every morning. May I just say that is a bad idea?!

Yesterday afternoon, I felt all ‘out of sorts’ to use an old phrase. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me but EVERYTHING seemed to annoy me! It was pretty terrible. I remained calm on the outside but the inside was full of turmoil. I began to print programs for our annual Country Christmas event that night. It was at this point that a coworker, whom we shall call Paige, stepped in.

She came over to my desk where I was piling the printed programs and asked, “Why are the programs being piled face down?”

And that’s when it happened. This came out of my mouth. “DOES IT MATTER?! THAT’S JUST THE WAY I’M PILING THEM! I’M NOT LEAVING THEM THERE!  Now, I wasn’t really yelling at her, in fact, it came out in a shrill silly kind of voice that made her laugh.

But I knew what I was thinking inside. That is such a dumb question! Why is she bothering me? Can’t she see they are just there temporarily???

So Paige left and went back to her office. That’s when my conscience came in. That was super mean of you Kimmy. What’s wrong with you anyway? Why are you so on edge today? You know that was wrong and you need to apologize.

Later Paige walked up to ask me something and I said, “Hey I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.”

She just stared at me, “You snapped at me? When?”

I was amazed. “When you asked about the programs!”

She laughed. “Oh, that was a snap? Are you sure? I didn’t think it was a snap but if that’s what is was to you, it’s okay. That was a really dumb question to ask.”

I laughed too, made some coffee and the world got better for the rest of the day. (And I went to bed around 10:30 last night. 🙂

I’ve often thought about whether sin in your heart needs to be confessed out loud. I know we need to confess to the Lord but if I was thinking badly about Joe, do I need to confess that to him or just deal with my heart and move on? I still don’t know. But this time was different because I actually did something. I rarely ever feel angry and when I am, it almost never shows because it’s just for a few seconds. I guess even when I actually act in my anger, people still don’t know. 🙂

Anyway, the moral of the story is: make sure you get plenty of sleep.