when Love sleeps

In the deep, still darkness of the night, we woke up and noticed our bedroom light was on.

Four hours before, we had turned every light off and gone to bed. So, strange light was concerning. Lights don’t come on all by themselves, after all.

Morgan got up to check on the house while I waited to be killed by intruders.

He came back five minutes later, pointed to the ground and said, “Finley.”

There she was, our seven year old daughter, right next to our bed. She was snoozing away like a little bear cub hibernating for the winter.

Morgan turned the light off and we both went back to sleep.

Except before I drifted off, I lay there thinking about the mixture of confusion, fear, and relief the midnight drama had brought us. The whole experience was a mini version of how life can be full of mystery and almost-tragedy.

Because there are nights we wake up and the light is on: our boss has to let us go, our house floods, the money isn’t enough, or our child is walking out the door for good. We get up to investigate or we silently wait for the end to come.

When the end does finally arrive, we find that Love has been sleeping beside us the whole time. The darkness takes its toll on us, but life goes on and the gospel offers us the chance to see how God weaves the unexpected into His greater plan for our redemption.

I don’t ever want to go to sleep without knowing Love is next to me again. I want to live out here in the full light of the gospel.

Let me look at you and say, “Sometimes I’m a real slacker loser who gets scared and hides from life.” Then you can look back at me and say, “Really? Sometimes I don’t know right from wrong or dark from light and I’m terrible at doing my life.”

Then let’s grab hold of all the other sleepers. We’ll shake the shame and brokenness, as God binds us up in His grace and mercy.

God has flipped a light on in the middle of our dreaming and there is a way to be made holy and righteous and glorious in Him.

Who wants to be perfect on our own when we can be redeemed by a Savior, be born of His Spirit, and belong to God together?

I don’t want to live my whole life and find out I never learned how to die.

I don’t want to hide my wounds so well God can’t wrap them in His grace.

I am tired of ignoring the shrapnel of my mistakes and living with the sharp edges of false beliefs always cutting deeper into my soul.

Love sleeps beside us. He has turned on all the lights we turned off. When we lie down with Him, He restores us, making us whole and redeemed. The night will go on, but we are never alone.