Wakeful

Wednesday in the Fifth Week of Lent

My eyes are open in the night watches,

   that I may meditate upon your promise.  Psalm 119: 148

I wake before the alarm sounds and stretch into the morning. Except it isn’t morning. I look at the clock and realize I have awoken hours before it is time to get up.  Why am I awake?

I take a brief inventory. I have not been woken by a vivid dream, or worries about the day. I am not unwell. I am simply awake. 

When I was a child, my mother taught me that waking in the middle of the night is a good time to pray. Somewhere along the way I learned a traditional Jesus prayer that I use in the dark of the night, casting it like a net to recapture calm and peace and sleep.

But in this moment, I am not anxious about the loss of sleep. Rather, I reach to God in prayer as the best way to make use of my wakefulness. This dark-of-the-night moment is a gift; my watchfulness affords me connection to the Holy One and the chance to weave the strands of hope and trust more securely into the fabric of my life.

copyright © Anne E. Kitch 2014

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