Many of you know I have suffered from chronic insomnia for years, but there have been times when it's been extraordinarily difficult. About eight years ago it got so bad that I was hospitalized for a week while they tried to figure out a solution. A new drug helped but caused severe weight gain. I've been on a mix of various drugs since. They all eventually stop working, so I've had to rotate medications. And down through the years, I've wrestled with God over this and so have loved ones on my behalf.
Recently, it's gotten quite bad again. Nothing has worked. I have been sleep deprived for several weeks which was the limit before I began hallucinating from no sleep. I have no idea how I am still functioning, but I am. Sometimes I feel so exhausted and my thinking becomes muddled yet I'm still going.
There is a difference this time, though. I have found I'm not as ardently fighting with God over it and maybe it's because I've been meeting with him in the nights. The sleeplessness isn't just my tossing and turning, it's been reading scripture and hearing God talk to me through it. It's been journaling and writing my prayers to him. And it's been with gratitude that I've not been left alone in the dark with only my depressed and desperate thoughts.
God has not engineered this chronic malady, but he has been using it, and for once so have I. As I read through the entire bible for the umpteenth time, I see the deprivations of some of God's people down through the ages and their responses. I see myself in them. They struggled mightily with God over their challenges, wondering where he was and why their trials were happening to them.
But a curious thing occurred with some of them. Those who were flexible enough to bend toward God did. Their circumstances didn't necessarily change, but their hearts did and they found radical acceptance through their trials. A radical acceptance in which they acknowledged their lives were not as they might desire but it was okay. In that, they found peace. No longer fighting God, but leaning into him.
In my bipolar disorder, I've had to reach a place of radical acceptance. Unless God decides to miraculously cure me all of a sudden, I'm going to suffer a variety of symptoms for the rest of my life. I don't fight him over it and there is peace in that. I've stopped demanding answers.
Do I wish my life were not like this? That I slept nightly and didn't have bipolar rear its ugly head periodically? Yes and no. Yes, because I would like to be like the "normal" people I know, as well as not have to take medications. No, because these conditions have driven me to my knees to seek God for his grace and strength. God knows me intimately and I cannot help but wonder if I wouldn't depend on him as much if I were any other way. It's like praying for patience and then being hit with demanding people and situations in which patience can be learned--or not. It all depends on how much you can bend. I do not wish this on anyone, but if you are wrestling with God, it may be time to learn to bend.
I'm finding deeper intimacy. Deeper love. Deeper surrender. Deeper dependence. And oddly enough, deeper joy. I'll be grateful for sleep if it comes and a new medication I'm going to try may help. But regardless, I will rest in God's grace to assure me all is well between him and me. And I am bending. I am leaning on the everlasting arms of God.
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