Day 25- Sleep and Surrender

After the kids go to bed at night, I stay up late writing blog posts and working. I think my usual bedtime is around 1am. Luckily I am a night owl. Last night though, well let's just say I could not keep my eyes open. I fell asleep at my desk around 11pm. While that is highly unusual for a Tuesday night, I was obviously done. My first reaction was to worry and to fight it. No I HAVE to write my posts, I HAVE to stay up. I tried so hard, but it got me nowhere, I was way past being just "sleepy," so I picked myself up and went to bed. I never pray in bed, but somewhere in my exhaustion before I fell asleep I prayed. I thanked God for my day and asked Him to watch over us. What I really did was surrender. I surrendered to sleep and I surrendered to God. I admitted that I don't know what is best for me and fighting for what I want does not work, in sleep and in life.

 And strangely, as I am writing this post, I am watching my daughter experience something similar. Her asthma has been acting up, which means she has bad cold-like symptoms and needs constant breathing treatments. This morning she has been very naughty. Extra crying, whining, and being not so nice. She was in a fighting mood all morning, demanding what she wanted. I stepped away from the situation and when I came back she was sleeping... at 10am in the morning. My little girl maybe naps once a week in the late afternoon, if ever. This morning, she was fighting it. She was fighting everything. And in the end sleep won, she surrendered.

 I look at these events and see the correlation in my life. Last year I learned to surrender to God's plans, which is hard for someone like myself who wants to control everything. But I am realizing that sometimes we think we have surrendered but we are still holding on trying to force our lives to be a certain way. To make parts of our life fit into a square when it's obviously a circle. We aren't actively seeking out God's plan for our life. I know it's hard and confusing but a lot of prayer, a lot of God's word, a lot of faith, and opening your eyes to see God's direction for you, can help you surrender. Really. I still need it in my life. I need the lesson that sometimes the things we want to get done, are not what really need to be done. We do not know best. My body told me that last night, my daughter's body is telling her that now, and God is telling me that always. Surrender to God's plans, they will always be better than the plans you have for yourself. Find rest in Him.

"Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from Him." -Psalm 62:5