The Color of Sleep

This – a full night's sleep – is a real answer to prayer for me:

If you are struggling with sleeping, I feel your pain, and want to encourage you that you will, one day, sleep again.

The best advice I ever got about insomnia was from my sweet friend, Patricia, who told me,

"Make friends with the night."

She went on to share that if she couldn't sleep, she didn't lay in bed, angry, staring at the clock.  She read, she made a cup of tea, she worked on a project or she prayed.

We can make use of those hours, especially when they are coming night after night and we seem stuck in a cycle of insomnia.

I've also added a few practices of my own:

• Pray through the alphabet, calling the name of everyone whose name starts with "A", then "B", etc.  If you only get to "G" one night, start on "H" the next night.
• Recite Scripture, beginning in Genesis, go through every verse you know from memory in each book of the Bible.  You'll be surprised how many verses come to mind.
• Listen to audio books.  I use the free site Librivox to download classics to my iPod.  I listened to different readers until I found a few whose voices I found soothing.  I rarely make it through one chapter before I doze off.

I'm wishing you sleep, my friends,

Alesha Kay