Troubled sleep

He laid in bed for hours it seemed.  Tossing and turning, restless and unable to match the tired he had felt prior to going to bed to any semblance of the body and mind relaxation that precedes falling to sleep.  His mind was restless too.  It wasn't focusing on any one thing.  To him, it seemed as if his mind was in disconnect as it seemed to jump from one thing to another, never pausing long enough on any one thing to focus on it.  He felt it was going to be a long night of very restless sleep....if there was to be any at all.

Music !  The fleeting thought of music zapped through his mind as a part of the symphony of disconnect that was playing there.  Music sooths, he thought.  Music calms, another glancing thought he grasped.  So he left the warmth of the bed he was so frustratingly trying to sleep in to find his I-pod.  As he made his way back to the bed that he was beginning to think needed an exorcism, he set his I-pod to cycle through the Christian & Gospel songs that had been stored there.  Once in bed he realized that with the music streaming through his ear buds that sleep wasn't going to come.  But what did come was so much more valuable to him....a calmness came over his heart and mind.  His body wanted to react to the music in the most common of ways.  Finger tapping, feet jiggling, hands raising.....particularly as the praise songs cycled through.

As the music which had been playing for a while continued to randomly play, something started to stir in his heart, and with that stirring a clarity of thought lit up his mind.  It was as if he was totally isolated from all that is earthly.....amazingly so.  He saw himself as he really is.  A broken man.  A man so very prone to sin, to neglecting God's will, a man consumed with his need to control, a man who felt that he just couldn't "get it right".  And in that moment of clarity, he also saw God's hand extended to him and he could almost feel the breath that came with the words he heard..."I've got you man, I've got you.  You're mine.  We can do this".

The ear buds came out.  The tears were wiped away from the eyes, and his knees hit the floor alongside the bed.  The house was totally silent....except for the voice of the man kneeling by the bed as he prayed...."fix me Father, fix all that is wrong within me.  Heal me Father, and let me bask in the glow of the scars from that healing.  Take me Father, to do whatever it is You want with me....and lead me there as you make me willing to follow.  Make me willing to be built into the man You want me to be, to do whatever it is, wherever it is, what you want me to do. Take my heart and wrap it in your hands as together we fight the demons that plague me so."  And he cried.  And cried.

Spent, he crawled back into bed.  And he slept, feeling as though he had the arms of Jesus wrapped around him.  A quiet sleep.  A peaceful sleep.  A calm sleep.