Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Moonlight, Prayers, and Pillows

I am normally a very sound sleeper. Night comes, it gets dark, my eyes grow heavy, and quite often I have no difficulty in curling up with my pillows and blankets to find a soft and sweet sleep.


There are times though, when I am woken up. Not by the owl singing love songs to his feathered mate on the next hill, or the dog who occasionally howls in her sleep. But, woken for a purpose. It is something like a knocking at my heart, faint and gentle at times, stridently piercing at other times. It is a knocking like a hammer that knows exactly which part to strike. I wake up from my sleep and know that there is a need.

Sometimes it is a prayer need for a family member or friend. I try to focus my fuzzy sleepy brain around that as the moonlight comes into the room and coats everything. At other times, it is a sense of urgency to pray, but without a specific topic. But these times, though they interrupt my rest, are very special to me. My thoughts slowed down by the quiet, they are often more centered on the topic at hand. This may be something I have prayed about all day, and yet, somehow in the dark of the night, it is clearer than by the sunlight. I am less distracted, less liable to wander off my topic.

I wonder if you are ever woken up in the night by more than the crooning owl or the howling dog. Do you have someone knock on your heart at times?

No comments:

Post a Comment