Where Is God When Sleep Won’t Come?

I stare at the clock: 3:00am. If I fall asleep right now, I can still get three hours. Nighttimes are full of these elementary calculations when you’re an insomniac.

Insomnia has been my constant companion since high school. Some seasons are worse than others, but the worst of my life began just after my daughter’s first birthday, when her two older brothers were three and four. I went to bed that night as usual, only to wake two hours later and never fall back asleep. I began to skip entire nights of sleep, sometimes as many as three times a week. I hoped doctors could fix me, but as the weeks stretched into months and the months into years, I realized this was no short-term trial.

It’s difficult to overstate just how desperate I felt when I’d still be awake at 4:00am, 5:00am, and then 6:00am when the alarm would sound and the day would officially begin. Many nights I despaired. But then slowly, over time, a surprising thing happened: God trained me, as he has countless others of his children, to “kiss the wave that throws me against the Rock of Ages.”¹

Lay Your Hand Over Your Mouth

I turned to the Psalms, feeling a certain kinship with those who called out to God long after the sun had gone down. I hoped God would also give me a “song in the night” (Psalm 77:6). I strove to “remember [him] upon my bed and meditate on [him] in the watches of the night” (63:6). Though my hand was “stretched out without wearying,” begging God for relief, it was as if God held “my eyelids open,” denying me the sleep I craved (77:2, 4). “Why have you forgotten me?” I cried along with the psalmist (42:9). Have you “shut up [your] compassion?” (77:9). It was hard to believe God was storing my tears in his bottle (56:8).

Over and over I would beg God to let me sleep. I’d accuse him of not providing for my needs as he had promised; then I’d half-heartedly repent of my false accusations and remind myself I’d probably think more reasonably during daylight hours. There is wisdom in distracting yourself when you cannot gain the advantage over a different kind of wave — the wave of “rising doubts” and “rebel sighs.” I learned to get up and do something else until I could summon more sanctified logic.

One of the more memorable distractions from that season was a podcast featuring an Englishman from Liverpool reading sections from the King James Bible. I listened hopefully, peradventure I might nod off anon to the rasping sounds of the Liverpudlian dialect. But mostly I found myself mentally engaged. The words were so beautiful. (Also, What is a ‘sackbut’? I’d wonder. An ‘ensample’? ‘Lucre’?) In that confusing season, God trained me to calm and quiet my soul by listening to truth rather than meditating on my fears and doubts (Psalm 131:2). I learned to “lay my hand on my mouth” and let God instruct me (Job 40:4). Besides, I was often too tired to argue.

God Sweetens the Trial with Gifts

God had other lessons for me in this two-year crucible. I learned that he delights to accompany his trials with bespoke gifts. He gave so many graces specifically designed to lift my spirits: dear friends, good books, sunny days, a husband who (along with many other strengths) could make me laugh, a little girl who gave the best hugs, in-laws who would take the kids for a few hours, children who were good nappers, a new doctor who really listened, some medical answers, and some unexpected opportunities to teach the Bible that drove me deeper into the word — exactly where I needed to be. I found God to be as personal in his graces as in his griefs.

A Good Father Disciplines His Children

Perhaps the best gift dispensed to me in this season was a much-needed chastening. Sleep deprivation has a way of robbing you of the necessary energy to lose your temper. God deployed insomnia to mellow my impatience, anger, and autonomy. It also had the effect of depriving me of hot, scolding words, and many other words, for that matter; tired people, after all, are not the most articulate. Exhaustion slowed me down, teaching me to be more observant and more reflective.

Isn’t it just like our heavenly Father to do for us what we can’t — or won’t — do for ourselves? Because he loves me, he did not hesitate to do what was necessary to chip away at the hard, dead places in my heart. He humbled and subdued me, and I was better for it. I began to hope that the painful season of discipline might yet yield the promised harvest of righteousness (Hebrews 12:7–11).

His Grace Is Sufficient

When Paul prayed for relief from his thorn in the flesh, God answered, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). I’d heard and even quoted this verse many times before, but insomnia tutored me in its meaning. I wanted it to mean that God gives abundant, even profligate grace in weakness — grace that miraculously supplies boundless energy and a clear head even after thirty hours of wake time. Now, that’s quite a semantic stretch for the word sufficient, but despite my weariness at the time, I was still an optimist.

When reality settled in, I learned that sufficient meant that God gives what is necessary to accomplish the good work at hand. It was a “manna for today” situation; I learned to depend on his grace moment by moment (Exodus 16:4–5). And moment by moment, he delivered. The kids were clothed and fed and loved and tucked in at night. The house was still standing. Sometimes the bathroom was clean. I had pieced together a talk for a women’s conference at church. And I couldn’t account for any of it. Praise God. Again, he kept his promise.

Others Also Need Grace

Over time I got better at nighttime prayers. It helped to stop thinking so much about myself. Self-pity is a real threat to virtue. I learned that if God “takes thought for me,” and if those thoughts are a numberless sum, perhaps I could spare a few of my own for others (Psalm 40:17; 139:17–18). I began to consider all the other people who were also awake in the night. There are so many: parents of newborns, grieving widows, the chronically anxious, the terminally and chronically ill, post-op patients, third shifters, the homeless, and bar crawlers chasing momentary happiness deep into the night. How desperate we all are for God’s grace! As God brought people to mind, I prayed for them, believing with all my heart that if he had prompted me to pray, he was prepared to work.

Kiss the Wave

If you’re in a similar sleepless season, here’s my best advice: Don’t resist the wave intended to throw you against the Rock. You cannot hold your breath and dive under the wave until it passes. You cannot brace yourself against its power. It is God’s good hand to pin you to the Rock. Though it will hurt you, it will not destroy you. It may feel like evil, but the pain is on God’s leash, controlled, hedged in, and precisely deployed only for his good purposes and fatherly intentions for your life.

So, when you’ve exhausted your words, lay your hand over your mouth and listen. Imbibe the word like the thirsty Israelites drank from the rock in the desert. If you can’t settle your mind to read Scripture, listen to it. “It will be healing to your flesh and refreshment to your bones” (Proverbs 3:8). (Or, if you prefer, “health to thy navel and marrow to thy bones,” KJV.) Then, look up and look out. Observe the many custom-designed gifts accompanying the trial and thank God for each one by name. Reflect on how God is recreating you through the trial, transforming you from the image of Adam into the likeness of his dear Son. Gratefully receive the sufficient grace he dispenses like medicine from a dropper — one drop at a time and only as needed. Observe the many others who are trying to stand in the breaking waves and pray for them.

Do all these things while grasping for your spiritual Rock, Jesus, who is himself acquainted with grief and stands ready to help you in your hour of need (Isaiah 53:3). He who did not let Peter sink beneath the waves will not allow you to slip into the stormy depths.