After a night of endless thoughts and little sleep, I have realized how infrequent those nights are now, thank God! For much of my life, I have had to implement a falling-asleep routine, when to turn to my right side after much of my brain power is waning, etc. I have just been accustomed to my best thinking, praying, and processing hitting me all as I lay my head down to sleep. That served me well in college, actually, as whenever I was in a tumultuous state of essay writing or presentation preparation and it was as if 18 little thought birds were whirring around in different directions and I needed to catch each one and make sense of it, all I had to do was power nap and float into a wellspring of clarity.
But a lot of my life, I have put myself under profound stress about what the next day would bring, thinking of all the tasks left undone, of the next game or competition, or of how I would have to work up the courage and strength to put myself out there. Or I simply worry about things. And people. I am a natural worrier. But in the last couple years I have found more ways to cope, to write my worries down and deal with them in the light of the next day, to let things go, or to sort things through. And God has been patient with me as I learn how to channel God's peace. I still have a natural tendency to worry, but then there's this verse that hit me and stuck this fall in my Unglued bible study: "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything." Maybe having a conversation with God is daunting and more stress than peace for you at this point, but if you find peace through music, or art, or dance, those are ways to let God move through you too! Last night was one of the nights where the thoughts kept me awake, but I am so thankful that those nights are few and far between, at least in this season.
And today I'm thankful for heartening comments from strangers :-) There can be so much filth, hyper-criticalness, and people tearing each other down or yelling in derogatory remarks and/or all caps on the internet. As much as I am doing this blog in an attempt to reflect on God's blessings in my own life and not expecting any commendations from humans, I hope that some miniscule portion of my random ramblings touches someone out there, and the commendation is an added bonus!
Another instance of revelation of healing today is that I realized, hey, I played tennis last night, and my wrist does not hurt today! So thankful for time to rest it and heal that injury that plagued me most of my senior season. Sometimes, the body just needs time to heal too, and year-round competition does not often grant that. I do believe this is the first time my wrist has not hurt during or after tennis in eight months, so that gives me another confirmation that some time away from the sport was a pretty healthy decision.
Other things...
Goo Gone is amazing. So is youth group night of caroling in a group home followed by talking college prospects with St. Luke high schoolers. And finding a birthday check from my grandparents from two years ago that I had apparently forgotten to deposit - it came at a pretty solid time, as I look to set out on my own in the near future. Yay pleasant surprises!
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