There are many ways to use that word: weak. You can have a weakness for some kind of food or novel. You can be weak physically or mentally. You can be weak in your ability to change or fix something.
Today, I particularly mean that last one.
A few weeks ago, I wrote a personal narrative essay for school. My topic (after much agonizing) was sleep.
Maybe you know, maybe you don't know, but I have trouble sleeping. It hasn't always been a problem. As a kid, I thought sleep was a waste of time that could be better spent reading or playing or writing or talking. If I got tired, I knew it wasn't more than a few hours until bed and then I'd be fine the next day.
At the beginning of the summer a couple years ago (2015), that changed. I started going to bed and just not sleeping. Nothing was wrong. I just couldn't quite get to sleep. That's continued to be the case in varying degrees of intensity over the past almost two years.
It's made me weak.
Even now, as I type, I'm having trouble making myself put down these words. Because it's still hard for me; it's still a painful struggle - and one that I feel I'm losing.
When I don't sleep enough one night, I'm irritable and tired the next day. When I don't sleep enough for a week, that intensifies. The littlest thing can (and will) make me mad and a single math problem can become a whole afternoon's frustration. And I cry. I hate to cry, but there's nothing I can do to stop myself when I haven't slept and the tears begin. Absolutely nothing - I have no control.
And that's part of what makes me feel weak.
It's not just the crying and trouble thinking straight and copious amounts of daily caffeine though. I also feel weak because no matter what we've tried to do to fix this problem, it's still there. You name it, I've tried it. Homeopathics, eating and bedtime routines, medications, vitamins. I even got my own room in the hopes that it would help. But nothing does. Not for long, at least.
This is a continual frustration. It doesn't only affect me at night, when I'm staring into the blackness for yet another hour. It also hurts me during the day when I can't focus and think long enough to finish a reading assignment for school.
As a perfectionist, I like to have things in my control. I don't have this in my control. I've been trying to get rid of the perfectionism for a while now, but this one thing I want to have for myself.
I've prayed (rather angrily) that God would take away the sleeplessness, asking Him why He would do this to me. It doesn't seem fair. Such a simple thing permeates the rest of my life and makes easy things hard.
Lately, I've seen the suffering around me. My friends have their own struggles and so does my family. I'm not the only one who has to live with something over which they have no power. And I think we're kind of meant to be that way.
In a sermon on John 11 (if I remember correctly), our pastor said one thing that really stood out.
Trials are good, because when we are weak, the only place we can go is closer to God.
That brings to mind verses like Jeremiah 29:11 and Philippians 4:6-7. God knows what He's doing with my life, weakness included. Even Paul had a "thorn in his side" that God wouldn't take away. Suffering is part of sanctification.
I think realizing that helps. I still want the suffering and weakness gone - I want to be able to sleep at night. But somehow, this is good for me. He knows what He's doing even when I can't do anything.
-Kira
No comments:
Post a Comment