{"id":575,"date":"2011-02-10T12:49:49","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T17:49:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=575"},"modified":"2011-02-10T18:18:58","modified_gmt":"2011-02-10T23:18:58","slug":"in-peace-i-will-lie-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/?p=575","title":{"rendered":"In peace I will lie down"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Good morning Father.\u00a0 First off Lord, let me apologize in advance.\u00a0 Last night was rough, and I\u2019m not terribly \u201cwith it\u201d<\/em> today I\u2019m afraid.\u00a0 As You well know, I\u2019ve suffered with insomnia on and off since I was 12 years old.\u00a0 Well, last night it came back in all fervor and I ended up only getting a few hours respite before having to start my day.<\/p>\n

This was an odd bout of sleeplessness Father.\u00a0 Usually, it simply manifests itself as my mind going a mile-a-minute and not being able to shut down.\u00a0 Last night however, I also had physical symptoms as well; My heart was racing, my chest was tight and I felt overwhelmingly anxious.\u00a0 I have no clue what brought it on, but it lasted for a good bit of the night.\u00a0 I tried praying in the darkness, slow breathing techniques, and finally resorted to a sleeping pill but nothing seemed to calm my restless spirit.\u00a0 Finally, plain old exhaustion took over and I passed out for a while.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been ages since this has happened Lord, and I\u2019d forgotten how unsettling it is.<\/p>\n

This morning, I headed for Your \u201cInstruction Manual\u201d<\/em> to see what wisdom I could glean about this recent development, and of course came away with some things to think about.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat\u2014 for he grants sleep to <\/sup>those he loves.\u201d \u2013 Psalm 127:2<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ok, I get it\u2026 Sleep is one of Your Gifts to us as well, and I need to remember that and Accept<\/span> it from You (there\u2019s that word of mine again\u2026).<\/p>\n

\u201cIn peace I will lie down and sleep, for you alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety.\u201d \u2013 Psalm 4:8<\/strong><\/p>\n

I obviously need to focus on this as well Lord.\u00a0 With the turmoil in our lives today, we sometimes allow our worldly anxieties to overwhelm us, and I\u2019m sure that contributed to the tumultuous night I had.\u00a0 I need to let go of the day\u2019s struggles, and dwell in Your Peace when I lay down.<\/p>\n

Heavenly Father, please help my mind be in steadfast focus on Your Everlasting Peace.\u00a0 May we all learn to leave our burdens at Your Feet, and Accept<\/span> Your Calming Comfort in our lives.\u00a0 Amen.<\/p>\n

~Phather Phil<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear Lord; Good morning Father.\u00a0 First off Lord, let me apologize in advance.\u00a0 Last night was rough, and I\u2019m not terribly \u201cwith it\u201d today I\u2019m afraid.\u00a0 As You well know, I\u2019ve suffered with insomnia on and off since I was 12 years old.\u00a0 Well, last night it came back in all fervor and I ended […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3],"tags":[691,9,961,959,100,451,50,27,944,915,308,955,173,962,42,276,140,593,916,963,345,133,957,506,670,392,448,25,239,776,217,253,881,727,956,187,960,958,95,954,777,800,430,106,142,348],"class_list":["post-575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-emails-to-god","tag-accept","tag-alone","tag-anxieties","tag-breathing-techniques","tag-burdens","tag-calm","tag-calming","tag-comfort","tag-darkness","tag-dear-lord","tag-dwell","tag-everlasting-peace","tag-father","tag-fervor","tag-focus","tag-gifts","tag-heart","tag-heavenly","tag-heavenly-father","tag-insomnia","tag-learn","tag-love","tag-mile-a-minute","tag-morning","tag-night","tag-obvious","tag-overwhelming","tag-peace","tag-physical","tag-plea","tag-pray","tag-psalm","tag-respite","tag-rest","tag-restless-spirit","tag-sleep","tag-sleeping-pill","tag-slow-breathing","tag-spirit","tag-steadfast-focus","tag-struggle","tag-suffered","tag-time","tag-turmoil","tag-wisdom","tag-word"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p18mMc-9h","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=575"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":578,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575\/revisions\/578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=575"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=575"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.phatherphil.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=575"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}