Please note:
This post is written by a Christian and is primarily for people of that faith but do please take what you need and leave the rest.
Social media has its good and bad sides but last week I had one of the brilliant moments when I came across a brilliant post from the rather amazing and very inspiring Dave from ‘The ordinary office'. An ordinary office is a prayer community gathering around the Anglican tradition of saying ‘daily office’ prayers - using regular prayers to mark certain times of each day.
'An ordinary office’ publishes prayers for each day with a particular headspace for those who might be unable to connect with church gatherings or communities - through illness or circumstances. They also - vitally and amazingly - include on the site an ‘amen’ button you can press to register your prayer and remind you you are not alone - you are part of a wider community of praying people reaching out to God in perhaps dark or difficult times. I love it - do check it out - and thank you to Dave and people like him quietly and beautifully bringing God to the people and places who need it so much but are often overlooked and can feel forgotten and abandoned.
The post that caught my eye was a beautiful prayer written for the night hours - those darkest moments when sleep won’t come and your mind is suddenly alive with thoughts and things you’ve held at bay all day but which seem to strike just when you are desperately trying to switch off and find rest. Monsters often catch us in those quiet moments, and the night when we are exhausted and alone is the worst time to be ambushed. You can read the full prayer at the end of this article (reprinted with permission).
So why does the bogeyman so often get us in the early hours? Why can thoughts, memories - or other things - catch us, even wake us in the middle of the night? I’m often to be caught agitatedly adding things to my supermarket order in the dark, or putting reminders on my next day's calendar at 3am for things I’ve suddenly remembered I still need to do.
Your mind is a brilliant thing, but it does have limits. When life gets super busy your internal processor can - as you may feel all too keenly - be overwhelmed. And your mind is good at clocking things you need to give headspace to - but not always so good at getting your attention when the day is busy and you are constantly reacting to the next demand. Just keeping your head above water can take all your capacity in those moments.
And of course, sometimes the things your mind wants you to notice are the very things you don’t want to think about. Painful emotions, traumatic memories, difficulties or dilemmas you don’t have a solution for - all day you might be actively suppressing them. But your mind knows they need to be thought about, dealt with, processed ...
And so, finally, at the end of the day, you collapse into bed seeking relief, rest and restoration... but your mind is FINALLY able to get a word in edgeways! And so just as you want peace your brain brings other things to the front of your mind.
It’s a natural process - but that doesn’t make it any less annoying if you are battling insomnia, or frightening if you’re experiencing bad dreams or flashbacks. So how do you deal with it?
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