Thanks tons for your kind words and elaboration. I was curious.
Praying for loved ones I haven’t seen in a while is a common early hour activity of mine, too. No matter the degree of contact—or reasons for no contact, I don’t quit caring for folks I’ve been close to at one time in my life.
In terms of sleep—I often pray for extended times in the early hours.
Also, when it is clear that I should sleep, I have learned to “take each thought captive” as Scripture says . . . and force myself to think of something complex enough to be somewhat interesting but not interesting or exciting enough to wind the adrenaline up.
For me . . . that tends to be hobby type stuff . . . in my mind: landscaping an aquarium; a garden; designing a house floor plan; pottery designs; some such.
I think that satan and his goons particularly like to rob sleep from saints. But Scripture says God gives rest and sleep to His kids. Sometimes we have to take each thought captive to effect it.
And, as I tell my students . . . worrying about not sleeping dumps adrenaline in the bloodstream and keeps one awake. After 15 min—read a moderately dull book; pray; FREEP or whatever until one is sleepy.
Thankfully, most of my adult life I’ve had work that enabled me to sleep when I was sleepy and do whatever other times. I generally sleep in 1-3 chunks of time.
Anyway—this pontification on sleep was brought to you through the courtesy of caring about my dear Sis: Tax-chick.
It was NOT due to diarrhea of the fingers!
Ahywho—do have a blessed week.
LUB,
BLPH,
I’ve spent many years sitting up with babies and learned to appreciate the time for prayer. And if I dream about people, I assume it’s for a reason, especially if I haven’t thought about them in living memory.
Your post has me thinking about gardening, now :-), but it’s too cold today. It will probably be another month before I can get my boys to digging things up!