Burn Us Up.

How to follow up a joyful cupcake post with a dreary, heavy-eyed, sleep-deprived post?

8 months.  Yes, that's right.  Almost 8 months of nightly sleep issues.  Have I had even one night free of the weight of my insomnia?

I tried to stop my sleeping pills  last night and it was a disaster.  Thing is, even with the pills I wake often.

Then I get up early in the am, down a few too many cups of coffee, and face another day.

My heart pleads with God to release this suffering from me.

I'm afraid of His answer.  In fact, I'm afraid that His answer will involve a lifetime of struggling with this.

Please no.  I'm breaking out in a sweat even imagining that reality.

Oddly, in more 'bold' moments, I've been so keen as to request that God allow this struggle to remain until I've learned all that He wants me to.

But now, after the waters rise, I want to take that back.

My 'why's' get no answer.  My 'how longs' get no answer.

So here I sit.  Weeping over 2 Cor 4:16-18 again.  "Our present troubles are SMALL and won't last very long.  Yet they will produce a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever.  So we don't look at the troubles we can see now, rather, we FIX our gaze on things that cannot be seen.  For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever."

I'm going to carry that one around my neck today.  Or put it on my forehead.  Not sure yet.

Holy Spirit.  Give me the power to surrendor.  To hold my hands out, up, and open.  And, to confess the words of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, "If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God whom we serve is ABLE to save us.  He will rescue us from your power, Your majesty.  BUT EVEN IF HE DOESN'T, we want to make it clear to you, Your majesty, that we will never serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up."

[Translation]:  My enemies of despair, of depression, of independence, of fear, of self-pity....I don't want to bow down to them and worship them as I have in the past.  Even if my God, whom is mighty to save, does not save me from the fires of this insomnia affliction, I need to be able to trust Him, and cling to the promise that He is, at least, with me.

See Shane and Shane's song regarding this passage.  Called Burn Us Up. Powerful.

I wish it wasn't so hard.