A prayer awareness exercise for insomnia

Father, lover of all your creation, open me to your love. Jesus, knowing the joys and sorrows of a human life, walk with me. Holy Spirit, giver of gifts, fill me, empower me, use me, even in my brokenness.

How does not being able to have a good night’s sleep make me feel? Frustrated? Sad? Angry? Powerless? Exhausted? What words would I use? . . . . . Do I also feel guilty that I don’t make better use of the hours of wakefulness? Could I be praying in that time? It is so hard to pray or even be lucid when I am also exhausted. Does any part of these verses from Psalm 88 speak to me and my condition?

O Lord, God of my salvation,
when, at night, I cry out in your presence,
let my prayer come before you;
incline your ear to my cry…
I am shut in so that I cannot escape;
my eye grows dim through sorrow.
Every day I call on you, O Lord;
I spread out my hands to you.
But I, O Lord, cry out to you;
in the morning my prayer comes before you.
O Lord, why do you cast me off?
Why do you hide your face from me?

The psalms give us permission to feel whatever we feel, to be honest with ourselves, and to be honest with God.


What is my honest plea to God?


As you end this time of prayer, I might recite these words from verse 30: ‘Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.’

Father, Son, Spirit, you know me through and through; you love me as I am; you touch my life with healing; you call me to bear fruit. I give my wounded self to you, to be a channel of healing to others, to be a wounded healer, with Christ, who died, and rose, and comes again. Amen.

Insomnia
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