Night Thoughts

“I can’t sleep well at night,” Anatalia, who just turned 62, complained to her doctor. “I try to sleep early, but I wake up at 2 AM and could not go back to sleep anymore.” 

“Have you tried reading?”asked her doctor. 

“I read my Bible before going to bed and at 2 AM, I read some more.” 

The doctor wrote on his prescription pad, “Take one pill of anti-histamine before going to bed.” 

“What?!” Anatalia worried. “What if I get addicted to it? Then it might not work anymore.” 

Her doctor, patience personified, said slowly, “My mother is 95 years old and I prescribed the same pill. She has been talking it for the last five years and she has been sleeping soundly at night, every single night.” 

“Oh.” 

Without telling her doctor, Anatalia did not buy the pill. But every morning, between one and three AM, she would read her Bible and talk to God in prayer—telling Him about her day, her worries and anything that came to her mind. 

“Even if I only had five hours sleep,” she happily shared with her friends, “I felt as though I had eight—my daily grace.”  

Our days are filled with too many activities and concerns. But alone, at night, we have all the hours to talk to God, which we normally do hurriedly in our busy lives. 

From Anatalia, I learned this lesson for those nights when sleep also eludes me. It’s beautifully worded in Psalm 63:6-7, “I lie awake thinking of you, meditating on you through the night. Because you are my helper, I sing for joy in the shadow of your wings.”