Sleep

Sleep is an elusive thing in my life. I don't know quiet what it is? My bedroom is calm and inviting. I have beautiful quilts keeping me warm and cozy and I even have a Percale pillowcase on my yummy feather pillow.I am tired when I retire, and I read a few minutes before my eyes start to droop. I fall asleep just fine...the problem is the staying asleep!

Most nights I don't sleep past 3am. Some nights I don't even make it till 1am. I wake up and look at the clock, sink back down between the covers, and try my hardest to fall back asleep. It is usually no use. I toss. I turn. I get up and visit the bathroom. But sleep does not return for me in my cozy little bed.

Years ago when this first started happening, I used to get up and get myself a cup of Sleep-time Tea, grab a warm afghan my mom made me, and pick up the book that I was reading at the time. I would head out to the quiet living room and read for hours at a time in the pre-dawn darkness. I read the entire Anne of Green Gables series that winter---right down to Anne's grandchildren. It was great...but I was so tired! I really just wanted to sleep.

Then I read in Ladies Home Journal that the worse thing you could do for insomnia was to GET OUT OF BED! You were suppose to lay there, and sleep would eventually come. NOT. Night after night the clock would say 3:00am...I was laying in the dark wondering when this magic of sleep would return, and Anne was having adventures without me.

Then someone suggested that maybe God was waking me up so I could pray or listen to something He was impressing on my heart. I wanted to tell that kind person that I was sure God knew I had 23 kids that would be waking up in a few hours for breakfast and school and that I was sure HE wanted me to have enough sleep so I did not strangle any of those kids because of sleep deprivation. But I did start to pray. I prayed for those kids. I did the VanWingerden Rosary as my Aunt Rose calls it. I would start with the oldest child and pray down the list of all the children. I would pray for general things like safety and health and also specific things like "Lord, I know that Justin has been lying to me about.....help me to catch him Lord in his lying." "I think that Susie is doing something wrong behind my back Lord....show me what!" You see I was being covert in my prayers---praying for kids to trip up so their sin would find them out!!!

Now don't get me wrong...my kids aren't that wicked...well not all of them. But I found the middle of the night to be the best time to unload to God my fears and suspicions about parenting. And most times I would fall asleep before I got to the bottom of the VW Rosary.

I had to switch that up after awhile cause the older kids were getting all the prayers and the "catch them in the act, Lord" while the younger ones were flying by under the radar!!I would fall asleep before I would get to their name on the list!  But it did seem to help me to fall back asleep...sometimes after a very long while..but at least for a little bit before the day would begin. I felt better when I got up after I had given to God all of my fears and concerns. And I would usually have some incite on what to do with a particular child.

I still have problems with sleep and after all these years, I have added to my list 14 grandkids, daughter and son in laws, and of course the 23 kids are still there. Just because you are grown and moved out does not mean you loose your place on the Rosary!