For the past few nights, I just haven't been able to sleep. I've been up until at least 12:30 every morning, and usually later into one or two o'clock. I've tossed, I've turned, but not once did I finally sit up, and give in to the fact that I wasn't going to be able to sleep anytime soon, until tonight.
It's been a couple of weeks since I've taken time to talk to God, and I honestly can't tell you why. It isn't like I've been too busy. But for the past couple of days I've been feeling that need to pray, but every time I would start to, I would get distracted and forget what I was doing. There was something that God needed to get through my head, and I just wouldn't listen.
So earlier tonight, as I tossed and turned, I finally just gave up. I sat up in my bed, and had that urge to pray again, and this time, I did. I told God all about what's been happening in my life lately (not much), and all about how I've been feeling. I told him everything. And I heard something in reply.
For months now, I've been bottling up hatred and anger, I've been holding a grudge that became the only thing I could see. This evening I was at a friend's house, and we were talking about the person who I've been holding a multi-month-long grudge against, and I can't really tell you that we were saying pleasant things. It seemed as though everyone was joining in, but then one of our friends had the courage to stand up and say that this wasn't okay with him, that it wasn't right to be talking about this person that way. And I felt a little badly, but mostly I felt like I had been slapped across the face. That person had hurt me a lot, and now my friend was standing up for him? My anger flared for a few moments, and simmered back down rather quickly, but I hadn't felt much remorse until I spoke to God.
God showed me that forgiveness truly is key. My friend who told us all that it was time to stop was right, and he knew what he was talking about. That probably took a lot of courage, and I know that God was working through him right there. As God opened my eyes to all of this late tonight, it was like I was looking into a mirror, and I know that I did not like what I saw. I was filled to the brim with anger and pain, and I allowed it to cover everything else up. Tears welled up in my eyes as I picked up my cell phone to text my friend who had stood up, to thank him for being God's hands and feet in showing me, well, a lot of things.
As I write this tonight, or rather, this morning, I'm reminded of two of my previous posts, "Stress Fractures" and "Forgiving and Forgetting". I let my little stress fractures build and build, piling one upon another, some were larger than others, until that's the only thing that was there. I thought that this no longer bothered me, but I can see now that I was wrong. All I had done before to help myself was bury it in the sand.
And I also thought that I had forgiven the person we had been talking about. But God asked my if I had forgotten. And I could not say yes. I've withheld true forgiveness for almost ten months now, and it has done me no good. Maybe I needed that time to reflect, to think, but I don't know if I've used it as well as I should have. I guess I still have a lot of forgiving to do this summer, and you know what? I don't mind doing it anymore.
I know that there have been several points to this one post, but I have just one more to share tonight. God's grace amazes me continuously. He's been sending me little messages for days, maybe even weeks, that I've been ignoring, but He never gave up. Tonight He worked through my friend to give me a wake up call, and I know that He works in all different ways, sometimes very mysterious ways. So thank you, Lord, for working all hours, even at 1:30 in the morning, and for never, ever giving up.
