Perhaps you’ve been asked this party conversation starter: if you could have one superpower, what would it be? Usually the choices are things like invisibility or flying. For me, the answer is a no-brainer. It would be the ability to never need sleep. Imagine all the extra time one would have to get things done, save the day, organize the closets, combat villains, etc.

At the very least, being able to sleep restfully at night would be my current choice. It might not seem like much, but getting unbroken sleep during the night is really such a blessing. It’s not something you think about much until it eludes you, as it has with me lately.

One speaker at a UPC women’s conference a few years back compared a woman’s mind to the Windows operating system–we are capable of having so many windows open at once that we sometimes must make a conscious effort to close those which are not important at the moment. In the middle of the night, my mind feels like a bunch of open windows which won’t respond to my frantic mouse clicks.

What strategies do you use when you can’t sleep at night? Do you get right out of bed, not trying to fight it? Do you use the time to pray, to reflect on scripture, or perhaps sing yourself a favorite hymn?

Jonathan sang one of my favorite Sara Groves songs last month entitled “Loving a Person.” The lyrics of this song just speak such truth about relationships. Relationships are hard. There is pain and hurt that comes with with the joy and community that relationships bring. My friends and family will hurt me and I will hurt them. I just wanted to point out a couple of lyrics that I especially like from this song.

“Sometimes things change, sometimes we’re waiting /We need grace either way:” Sometimes relationships are not happy or easy. We have to forgive and work through pain. This is a hard and slow process that is only possible through grace.

“Love and pride can’t occupy the same spaces baby / Only one makes you free.” Recently when I was listening to this song in the car, it struck me that I put limitations on my love. I think that I don’t have to love people unless they love me the way that I want them to. This is wrong. I am called to love the people around me whether I want to or not. And I have found that the harder it is, the more I have to rely on God to have the strength and grace to offer to that other person. I think that God would rather have it this way, that I am completely clueless about how to handle situations and I have to rely on him.

Even though relationships are hard, they are what we as humans were made for and they are so worth it.

“Let’s find out, the beauty of seeing things through”

Marrying my husband Johnny meant that in addition to becoming a wife, I also became a dog owner. Our dog Maya is a three year old, sixty pound, black lab mix from the pound. She has such a sweet personality and I don’t know that I could go back to being “pet-less” after living with her.

I came home from work today and was pretty tired. I had a day of meetings that included a lot of talking to people, which can be really draining for me. I was looking forward to getting home and doing nothing for a little while. As soon as I walked in the door Maya was glued to me. I patted her head once and then went on to do various things around my condo. For the next five minutes or so Maya followed me. She followed me… into a small closet, into the bedroom, into the kitchen and into the bathroom with her cold wet nose continually brushing the back of my knee. I started to get irritated at her and her cold nose and then realized that all that she wanted was a proper greeting. As soon as I looked at her and pet her for more than 2 seconds she stopped following me.

This may seem like a silly story and it kind of is, but it reminded me of myself and something that I don’t do. Maya knows exactly what she wants and needs. She wants/needs affection from me when I have been gone all day. Unlike Maya, when I am feeling down or need something from others I isolate myself. Instead of calling a friend and talking about a tough day at work I watch mindless t.v. or go to sleep when what I really need is community. Instead of taking my hurt and pain and crying out to God, I think that He doesn’t care and isolate myself from Him too. This is not what I was meant for. I think it is cool that God can use the behavior of my dog to remind me to turn to Him instead of isolating myself.

This is one of my favorite songs at the moment. If you’re not familiar with the song you can read the lyrics here.

God has been reminding me of past sins and hurts lately. It stinks. To be honest, it’s overwhelming, and I’ve spent time crying, and crying out to God. Crying out to God for healing. Because only God has the healing power that so many of us need.

This is one of the verses:

We are healed by Your sacrifice
And the life that You gave
We are healed for You paid the price
By Your grace we are saved
We are saved

I love this song, based on Isaiah 53: 5, because it reminds me of the sacrifice Jesus made for my sins. Because Jesus died on the cross for my sins, I’m healed. By his grace I’m saved. What an amazing and wonderful things He did for me! He did it for me AND for you too!

By his grace I’m not just saved from eternal separation from Jesus. He’s also saved me from so many other life situations. I’ve learned to turn to Jesus for healing. It’s a process. It may be a stinkin’ long process. But I trust God and I believe with all my heart, mind and soul that God is good. So I will not give up hope that Jesus will heal my hurts.

Hearing this song is always a reminder and encouragement to me.

I have an “answered prayer” story to share with you. It’s very much a story that could have – and almost did – turn out very sad, but instead ended very happily, and I believe the Lord orchestrated this into my life to teach me many things, one of which was the importance of persistent prayer. I suppose I’m sharing it to reinforce the concept that nothing is too big or small to pray about, and to keep praying about. God is a generous Father who loves to give good gifts to His children. He cares about all aspects of your life - your feelings, your hopes, your dreams. He created you, after all. It’s the story of how my husband and I came to be engaged.

Matt and I had been very good friends throughout my college years. We endured endless questions from others who wanted some definition of our relationship, and we maintained the line that we were indeed just friends. That was the truth – the sad, sad truth, in my opinion. Matt insisted he thought I was a wonderful person in many ways, but that he simply didn’t have romantic interest in me. And that was the truth, too. He’ll tell you to this day. So, what could I do but pray? It’s not that he didn’t notice me, it’s not that he didn’t like me, it’s not that he just needed to spend more time with me so I could woo him with my feminine charm. No, it was a heart issue, and there’s only one Person in charge of heart issues, so I went to Him regularly to plead that He would change Matt’s heart on the matter.

After 3 ½ years of close friendship, I began to sense that the relationship was going nowhere and since I’d graduated from college 9 months hence, I realized – very much through the prompting of the Holy Spirit – that I needed to get on with my life by breaking off my friendship with Matt, which I did. It was immensely painful, but through it all I felt joy and peace because I had a very strong sense of assurance that I’d been obedient to what the Lord was calling me to do in that situation. Believe me, the easier thing would have been to stay “just friends” forever – at least then I would have had something, right?

As I’ve mentioned, throughout the 3 ½ years before this quasi-breakup I prayed regularly for God to change Matt’s heart. The Lord brought me to a place of realization that even if He didn’t change Matt’s heart, it was going to be okay, and after I surrendered to this, he went ahead and did it anyway. The coolest part of the story – to me, at least – is that Matt had been praying the same thing all along – that God would change his heart - using this same language, and you have to understand that Matt and I don’t normally speak like this. We usually think in terms of our minds and thoughts, and not so much our hearts and feelings, so the fact that not only were we praying the same thing without knowing it, we were using the same rarely-used terminology.

So, there you go. God answered my prayer, finally. Most of our friends had given up after almost 4 years but the Lord knew what He was doing. Would He have brought me and Matt together had I not prayed? I guess there’s no way to know. I do know that through prayer, God involves us in His doings, and that’s no small thing. This story of answered prayer in my life is one that I look to time and again to remind me of the importance and privilege of prayer. I have a tangible reminder of it everyday – my sweet husband.