Wakefulness

There's many times when I wake in the night (actually it's usually in the small hours of the early morning) and don't go back to sleep for some time if at all. My mother tells me that it's something that goes with the aging process, and she swears that a spoonful of peanut butter helps her to go back to sleep. However, I don't generally mind it. I find there's generally three reasons why I wake in the night.

1. My Lord wakes me. He does this sometimes I think because I haven't been consistent enough in my walk and talk with him and he knows when he can get my attention. Other times he wakes me so that I can pray for others that he puts on my heart. How can I object to this special time with my Lord?
2. Someone or something else wakes me. I live in an apartment where people do come and go in the night, and on occasion it wakes me. Or, sometimes there's a noise on the street, a siren or something that wakes me. Fairly frequently on weekends I have house guests and I can wake when they go to the bathroom or something. This doesn't particularly bother me either; it's something I have no control over, so I treat it like I do with the first reason. This is a time to converse with my Lord and pray for the people that he puts on my heart.
3. Sometimes I wake myself. This usually (but not always) means that I need to go to the bathroom. It could also be that I have had a bad dream or a nightmare or even a really good dream that I want to remember, so I wake up. How can I get upset at myself for waking up if I need to go to the bathroom? I was a bedwetter for a long time as a child, and I assure you that it's far better to wake up when you need to go than not to. I'm also thankful to be able to wake up after a bad dream. Then I can turn that over to my Father and be comforted by him.

I find if I am awake in the night, it's usually for just one or maybe two nights in a row. If I'm shorted of sleep, I can always have a short afternoon nap or sleep in a bit in the morning. I slept in until 7:30 this morning, because I was awake for awhile in the night. It feels so decadent to sleep in, and yet I still have an hour before I need to get ready for church. All in all, it's not really so bad to wake up in the night occasionally. I can be thankful for wakefulness.