COUNTING BLESSINGS, INSTEAD OF SHEEP
After I got married, I didn’t sleep for 6 months!
Well, I barely slept during those months. But my issues in this department did not just start there…
Are you like me: have you ever battled with sleep issues? Maybe you are also like me when it comes to counting sheep… such a method rarely worked for me.
However, oh how I still love the feeling of laying down in an already-made bed to catch some Zs. Yet, often those same Zs play hard to get. Therefore, sleep and I have had quite the tumultuous relationship over the years.
Apparently, I am not alone. I recently read that an estimated 70 million people in the United States battle chronic sleep issues. Quite honestly, I personally think it may even be higher. I mean I’ve battled my pillows countless times and have never been involved in any surveys or studies. Still, high statistics do not make me feel better. I do not find comfort in knowing others suffer through nights and times like this when we are meant to rest. Instead, they just reiterate one of the issues we have in this country, and world: the lack of a work-life balance and how they often overlap, leading to exhaustion, sleep disturbances and much more.
Since my childhood, there have been many times that sleep disruption has hit me. Most of the time growing up, those nights came after watching a scary movie (which is probably why we don’t watch such shows now) or after hearing something that got me anxious. I saw way too much of the news during those years. During my teenage years and early twenties, it was due to doing too much, being so burnt out that my body just would not calm down enough to easily rest.
I was overtired and burnt out but crossing off my checklists and of course, staying super busy so I did not have time to think.
Because if I paused to rest, I falsely thought someone else would get what was meant for me. I was in the races, chasing after perfection and attention. Also, if I slowed, I would probably realize that the cycle I was living in was unhealthy and NEEDED to change. Yet, in my early 20s, change was NOT something I welcomed with open arms. I fought it as sleep fought me.
So in addition to my regular job, college classes, responsibilities and events with family, I filled my life with EXTRA of everything… extra graduate classes, extra tutoring, extra babysitting, extra swimming lessons to teach, extra nights out with friends… (You get the point.)
I would eventually rest but not until late at night and at that point, my thoughts were running laps around my bed. I sought out help from therapists and even some doctors at that time who told me I had anxiety and this was one symptom of it. So I listened to them and their recommendations.
Then, something happened…
Something I did not want to talk about for a while because I felt such shame from it at that time. (Even though we know that shame is not from the Lord. I didn’t know it at that time and often soaked myself in it instead of the truth of God’s Word.)
You see after one of the happiest times of my life, one of the most intense battles with sleep came. I had just gotten married to my best friend and came back from our amazing honeymoon in Aruba when… insomnia hit me harder than ever.
It was then that I barely slept for 6 months. I could not catch up with the Zs so I knew I needed a change and that is just what I did… I had to!
Enough was enough!
It was not easy.
It was not fun at all.
I was running on empty and feeling so guilty but our God was right there, guiding me to learn a very important lesson and technique.
Something needed to change, ready or not, whether I liked it or not. However, I had to seek this transformation not from worldly ways but from God. I was slowly learning, (I am so beyond thankful for God’s patience and grace.)
To fully understand what had provoked and instigated this sleep turmoil, let’s go back a little to that summer of 2009.
I love planning so organizing a wedding in less than a year was right up my alley. The perfect day came and there were no nerves at all. It just felt a hundred percent right. The breath of fresh air was turning into a life of that intoxicatingly fresh air. Then, the honeymoon came and Aruba lived up to its name and much more. It was a Sunday night when we arrived home to start our married life.
Marriage bliss.
My happily ever after.
Time to soak in …
Reality.
-It was soon that Monday morning and I had piles of laundry to do.
-It was also that Monday that my husband went back to work.
-It was that Monday that I got a text asking why I was not at a Language Arts meeting at school.
Well, I was not a Language Arts teacher, why would I be there?
It turned out that my principal had switched the subject that I was teaching from Social Studies to ELA (English Language Arts). I started to panic. I had so much to plan and prepare for. I knew nothing about this. Well, I knew some information being in an inclusion Special Education teacher in an in-class resource class and highly qualified to teach it, but not enough to feel comfortable. And the worst, most terrifying part was that I never admitted to anyone at that point of my life was that my anxiety often caused me to stumble on my words as I read. Now, they were asking me to do reading as a profession! Double whammy!
Fear is always waiting to attack. It always tries to feed on its prey at its most vulnerable moments. It is there trying to trick us into think it ever had power. Fear has no power though because it was defeated at the cross. Still, it will try to get us to believe it. But God…
School caused me so much anxiety. I had a group of twelve eighth graders to guide throughout all of their main subjects while teaching them life and study skills too. I was like their school mom. I loved that part but I was fully invested which at times meant I started to lose sleep about how to reach some of these students in very difficult situations out of school. In addition to that, I had the new subject matter and the insecurities of my reading that went into it. And then, there was the lull after the “wedding high” that few talk about. I had been living the dream, on such an amazing, natural high and then just like that we landed from our honeymoon, and I was met with cloudy warfare.
So there it was…
The marriage blues and work stresses caused me to stop sleeping.
Talk about stress on a new marriage when you are running on fumes and iced coffee because you are at war with sleep. For about six months, I did not sleep right. Sometimes, four hours a night, other times, three, many nights, I was lucky for one or two. No matter what my mind was on overload about, it did not matter: everything seemed worse in the middle of the night when the world slept and I worried away the minutes until the alarm said it was okay to rise.
Lack of sleep wrecks havoc on a person’s emotions and that seeps into a marriage, and any relationship. I was stuck in a cycle and could not break it. Did I have reasons for not sleeping? Sure! However, the real question was:
Were those reasons going to become my excuses or my opportunities?
I mean I was praying….here and there... when I needed sleep and of course at night before I went to bed, or didn’t go to bed. In fact, a student I guided during that time, would look at my eyes every morning and shake his head, “You didn’t sleep again. You need sleep too, Mrs. K.” He understood this just like I did. But still, I was missing something.
A colleague found out about my run in with insomnia during a department meeting at school one afternoon. It was probably the raccoon-looking circles that night was drawing on my face. She offered to lend me the book The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and since I had nothing to lose, I took her up on the offer and read it that very next night when I could not sleep. It appeared that everyone who shared their testimony in it and became very successful in this life, all had one “secret.” It made me think back to my undergraduate psychology classes and the understanding that thoughts were powerful and can change a person’s course and life. Definitely a lesson for everyone. I needed to gain control back of my thoughts. And I was prompted to do so in and with faith…
At the time, I was not reading the Bible daily yet. I was talking to Jesus throughout my days so in many of my nightly cries to Him, I asked how I could apply this to my life. I begged deliverance and declared I was ready for whatever He asked me to do.
I understood that I needed to change my thinking but I had lost control over it. I was terrified and felt beyond guilty with how incredibly unhappy I felt. How could I still be this unhappy? I had married the love of my life, my own “Prince Charming” and still I could not genuinely smile, I faked it. I worried about the despair I felt; but above all else I did not want to ruin our marriage. I was still not working on defeating my own demons and lifting my baggage completely, but it was a start. My focus still needed clarity on where it needed to start from, the foundation within was what I was lacking and the strategies I used were not ones that could heal and protect me.
Enough was enough!
Yet, I decided to take steps. I had to. God, give me a grateful heart. Change me.
However, before anything ever changed, I needed to fix my focus and mindset, which makes me think back to the Israelites. God had called them out of Egypt to the Promised Land.
“When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Hivites and Jebusites—the land he swore to your ancestors to give you, a land flowing with milk and honey—you are to observe this ceremony in this month:”(Exodus 13:5 NIV)
They went on what was supposed to be a journey of only days. Soon, days turned into 40-years through the wilderness and trials. They began to fight in their own fleeting strength and ask God to make it easier. They started to complain. Their mindset was so fixated on the time and the enemies before them when they really needed a mindset shift. Their issue was they were not turning to God, who told them to go and made them the promise. They needed to fix their focus, trusting Him and turning to Him for guidance.
Fix the focus.
Turn from focusing on the problem and turn to God.
Nothing is too great for God to defeat.
So what did the mindset switch mean for me? Every morning when I woke up early to run, 4:30 to be exact, I would not listen to music, nor would I watch the television at our apartment’s gym.
Instead, I would start in prayer, thanking God for the day and my upcoming sleep. I would then list to God everything and everyone that I was thankful for from my eyes, my legs, the ability to run, the ability to eat to laughter to my husband, my dad, my mom, my experiences…
Everything.
And.
Everyone.
I would praise God for it ALL even though my flesh felt so weary. I turned to Him for my strength.
I spent about thirty minutes doing this for days that turned into weeks and those weeks that then turned into months. I spent about two full months doing this before I noticed the start of a change. Much like the Israelites, it was not a journey of just a few days. Instead, it took time and determination, trusting God was working so I had to be stepping. I could not look back. And sure enough, soon my thoughts started to shift. They weren’t all negative anymore. I started to be able to live in the moment. I started to be able to enjoy marriage. I started to stop focusing on all that was wrong and see all that was right. It’s always been ironic that this was something I naturally did with my students and those around me, even those with the most challenging behaviors. Yet, I did not naturally do this with myself. I innately saw the beauty and gifts in them. I made it my goal to teach them all to see and believe in that goodness and beauty for themselves. I prayed they would see and believe it too for themselves. My heart broke for them if they didn’t see it. I knew that I couldn’t make them believe anything. It was a choice that could make or break a person. It was a choice that every person needed to make for themselves.
It was a choice I needed to make for myself… no excuses, only opportunities!
Still, in all of this, I had not yet ever really believed in my own beauty and gifting. No marriage vows or soulmate can do that for you. Just like, my husband could not do that for me. I had to see and believe in it for myself and it was a conscious choice. Maybe, I wasn’t a full believer yet, but a start is a start.
And finally I started to sleep again too.
We had argued a lot during that time. I mean the devil will use any and every foothole we give him to destroy relationships. I wasn’t sleeping and therefore, could not rationally go about my days. I was a walking zombie who put all the energy I could mask up into my teaching and work. When I got home, I had none left for the one closest to me. He was the one I was my best self with, but he also saw me at my worst. Evil kept telling me that I was messing up this relationship and that I was not worthy of it.
But, I was rising above it by trying to outtalk it with positivity. I was training myself through the strength and grace of God to see the good all around even in myself.
Evil will use lack of sleep.
It will use the baggage we all bring to marriages and relationships.
However, it needs our consent.
It holds no power without us believing it has power.
So now almost 13 years after that time, I still do this from time to time, and have added some more techniques to those restless nights too because sleep still tries at me.
It is in those times now that I:
First, pray. Sometimes, it’s simply “Thank You Lord for your peace. Help me rest in You.”
Declare Psalm 91 over the unrest, reminding the enemy, he has no room here. (See part of that Psalm below.)
Take time away from social media - There’s something about scrolling that gets my eyes rolling instead of resting.
I forgive. Sometimes, it is frustration or anger that enters throughout the day. It must not settle. Forgiveness frees. Therefore, I check my heart and soften my heart to what I need to let go of. For his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor lasts a lifetime; weeping may stay for the night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.” (Psalms 30:5)
I remember and refresh my grateful heart. I count my blessings instead of sheep.
So that is the The Art of Messy House Right Here Right Now challenge this week.
Count your blessings. What are you grateful for? Even through the most challenging times, there is so much to be thankful for. The very fact that you are alive and breathing right here is such a blessing. Praise God for Your life and purpose right now.
Store a scripture on your heart to rest on. Memorize it so that when the restless nights or even days come, you have God’s Word and Truth to declare over it.
And on the days that we barely sleep and wonder how on earth we will get through the day, remember this: Lean on God’s strength. We never need to do it alone. God, fill us with your strength.
“and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms,” (Ephesians 1:19-20)
Looking back, part of what I was overwhelmed by were the blessings unfolding but I was terrified of change. Take for instance, now almost 13 years later, I cannot imagine if I had not been asked to teach English Language Arts. In fact, it set me up to have my own classroom and space for even more. God knew what He was doing no matter how uncomfortable it was at first. He always does.
As the week goes on, I will continue to post about this topic on social media with more scriptures and related topics about sleep. Because this faith journey is indeed a journey. So while counting sheep may not have worked for me, counting my blessings has opened the door for more of a grateful and hopeful heart as well as a restorative night’s sleep right here right now.
“In peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.” (Psalms 4:8)
“I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.” (Psalms 9:1)
Dear God,
You are always the way. Forgive me for seeking worldly ways instead. I love You. Make in me a grateful heart. I turn to You for rest throughout my days and my nights. I lift up and forgive what I have been holding in. Soften my heart to make me stronger and more aligned with You. I pray for a great day ahead and a restorative night’s sleep tonight. I am forever grateful for You. I pray to count my blessings as I lift them up to You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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