A Prayer for Sleep When Anxiety Keeps You Awake
It's gone past midnight and you're still here, staring at the ceiling or the back of your eyelids, running the same three or four things through your mind again and again. The alarm is going to go off whether you sleep or not. You've tried the breathing technique, tried telling yourself to just relax, and none of it has worked because anxiety doesn't take instructions well. Your body is exhausted and your mind will not stop, and that gap between the two is one of the loneliest places to be at three in the morning. Photo by ismail yazıcı on Pexels In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for you alone, O LORD, make me dwell in safety. (Psalm 4:8) Bringing this to God Scripture was written by people who knew this particular exhaustion. David wrote Psalm 4 while surrounded by trouble, and still said, "In peace I will both lie down and sleep." That's not a man who had solved his problems before bed. It's a man handing them to God because he had run out ...