I will never forget the first time I really heard this question, "What keeps you up at night?" It was my operations manager in the office I work for hospice. She was talking with each of us about the hard questions we needed to be able to ask people who were on hospice services or taking care of someone on hospice services. My heart hurt as she asked it out loud and it wasn't because I was upset by the question but more because of the difficulty I had hearing the answer to the question. The answers to that question make me uncomfortable because the things that keep people awake at night when dealing with end of life issues are beyond human help. They are not things that we can find an answer for or cure for or we can just provide a resource and then check it off the list and the person will now sleep better. They involve life regrets, future fears, and the pain we feel when someone we love is beginning to leave us permanently. Imagine my surprise when I was reading my book tonight, "Finding Spiritual White Space: Awakening Your Soul to Rest" by Bonnie Gray, when the question was asked at the end of a chapter on self-care...What keeps you awake at night?
It is this question that led me to write my reflection tonight rather than just going to bed. The chapter was filled with so much good stuff. I highlighted so many words and wished I had someone else reading the book with me because it was just rich! One of my favorite quotes was "It may feel selfish prioritizing our well-being because someone else's needs may not be met. It can involve major life changes. Dismantling our lifeboats and tossing our cargo overboard. It may be small nuanced changes to take care of yourself. Every movement that gives your body a chance to heal gives your soul room to breathe...Because the focus of God's heart has always been your heart, self-care is a really a journey to receive His love" (Gray, Finding Spiritual White Space: Awakening Your Soul to Rest). In this particular chapter Gray outlines five steps for self-care to find the spiritual white space she is talking about. She recommends having friends you can just be with and not even have to have a conversation, eating for pleasure, naming what is stressing you, and sharing your story with someone as you allow them to share their story with you. The first question asked at the end of the chapter is the question our operations manager told us to ask those we wanted to serve...What keeps you awake at night?
As the old week ends and the new week begins, I find it is the things that I have learned about myself and those around me keeping me awake tonight. They whisper to me of things I do not yet know of God and challenge me to recognize the fear sitting outside the edge of my mind taunting me with accusations against God and the goodness I remind myself characterizes Him. I recall the conversations I had with patients and family members and the mental illnesses filling the rooms. I remember the vivid details of their stories and the disturbing emotional storms swelling inside of me as I sat silently listening with a sheen of tears across my eyes. Even as I write this, I am reminded of the testimony of a young man in the New Testament that Bonnie Gray talked about in her chapter about finding spiritual white space. His story has always been a troubling one to me and even more troubling with the stories I heard this week. He lived among the tombs. He cut on himself. He threw himself against the rocks. He cried like an animal and could not be held by the chains and shackles placed upon him to keep him there. When he met Jesus, he accused him of torturing him and pleaded with Jesus to stop. Jesus spoke and demanded a name to the spirit/spirits which occupied him. Scriptures say the evil spirits "begged him", Jesus, not to send them to some distant place. The torment of the man among the caves, the fear of the people living near this man, the evil spirits "begging Jesus", all tell a story that continues to keep me awake many nights as I learn to rest in God's unfailing love. My heart plummets inside me as I read the man, who Jesus set free, begging Jesus to let him go with Jesus (Mark 5:18) and Jesus saying, "No, go home to your family, and tell them everything the Lord has done for you and how merciful He has been." I feel trepidation even as I consider what this man's story may contain regarding his home, his family, and the place he comes from prior to living among the tombs.
This story is with me as I get ready to lay my head down upon the pillow. It has haunted me in the shadows of my mind throughout the week as I have finished some difficult visits. Lingering just outside of the reach of my imagination, the emotions that have often been present when reading this passage, have lurked just out of my reach until tonight. Tonight, when reading about spiritual white space, when studying of self-care, when looking for a place to rest, I was challenged to answer the question...What keeps me awake at night? And in the answer to that question I read another man's story and my eyes saw the shadow over the valley through which I frequently walk. I was able feel the weight of the baggage I have carried and the questions that fill the luggage as I find myself contemplating the torment of the mind and those who are sick with it, even as they lay dying. I look into the mirror of another soul's eyes and see the pain and agony reflected in the grief they carry despite the tormented mind as they too walk among the tombs cutting on themselves and howling. I read of heaven wonder again about the goodness of God in the land of the living that some will never know. My heart breaks and I realize what keeps me awake is the same thing that has kept me awake throughout my life, if God is good then why do people suffer the way the they do and only a few ever find the peace of His deliverance, fully clothed and sane? I remember a man I met years ago, sitting on the edge of his hospital bed in his hospital gown. I remember asking him what he was going to do. He knew he was going back to the tombs, so to speak, and there was nothing he would be able to do to change anything. I had asked him where he was finding his hope. Silently he sat, a grown man, sick and who was not going to get well, with a painful story in his past and fears for his grandsons future, tears falling silently from his eyes, and I still see his arm lifted and his finger pointing upward. His voice broke as he spoke in a whisper that echoed like a distant thunder, "He loves me." That truth will sing me to sleep once again tonight.
