notes on psalms to go to sleep to

i learned along time ago that psalms are the most helpful thing in the night for restoring hope and crow-barring you open to the idea of believing in god in the middle of it all
after a wonderful, peaceful treat of an evening (i got taken to room for a late supper with two of my favourite people..its my favourite place..and i ate what i think is the best thing they make...you can't argue with a night like that, can you...?!) i arrived home, yawned my way through -today in parliament- my nightly radio four ritual, and then turned, as i have so many times before, to the 70's psalms. the last couple of weeks' bout of not sleeping has somehow not involved me remembering the 70's psalms' previous success at helping me to regain some sort of internal balance, and thereby enabling sleep...how i could have forgotten about them, i'm not sure...thanks to a helpful textual reminder or two throughout the evening, though, i found myself once more at this...
(its a different version than i would normally prefer, but in the heap of books that lives by my bed, the message was the only good book available..)

pslam 77..

1 I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might, I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens. 2-6 I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord; my life was an open wound that wouldn't heal. When friends said, "Everything will turn out all right," I didn't believe a word they said. I remember God—and shake my head. I bow my head—then wring my hands. I'm awake all night—not a wink of sleep; I can't even say what's bothering me. I go over the days one by one, I ponder the years gone by. I strum my lute all through the night, wondering how to get my life together. 7-10 Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good? Will he never smile again? Is his love worn threadbare? Has his salvation promise burned out? Has God forgotten his manners? Has he angrily stalked off and left us? "Just my luck," I said. "The High God goes out of business just the moment I need him." 11-12 Once again I'll go over what God has done, lay out on the table the ancient wonders; I'll ponder all the things you've accomplished, and give a long, loving look at your acts. 13-15 O God! Your way is holy! No god is great like God! You're the God who makes things happen; you showed everyone what you can do— You pulled your people out of the worst kind of trouble, rescued the children of Jacob and Joseph. 16-19 Ocean saw you in action, God, saw you and trembled with fear; Deep Ocean was scared to death. Clouds belched buckets of rain, Sky exploded with thunder, your arrows flashing this way and that. From Whirlwind came your thundering voice, Lightning exposed the world, Earth reeled and rocked. You strode right through Ocean, walked straight through roaring Ocean, but nobody saw you come or go. 20 Hidden in the hands of Moses and Aaron, You led your people like a flock of sheep.

the week that almost was..

So after a week of blissful, heavy, helpful and uninterrupted sleep, I crashed and burned last night, awake more or less til about five…
I really thought I was done
I feel sadder than before!
This blows

and..

once more into the deep sleep, my friends..
we have two nights, friends, two nights in a row...
god is good
amen?
xx

pea? what pea?

i slept like the princess when the pea had been taken away last night, friends..and i had a nap after work..its all getting back on track
thank the lord

night report..

it makes no sense to me that even though my bed looks like this:

i couldn't sleep again last night

i gave in at 3.30 and watched an episode of the west wing..did the trick, sent me off to politically-motivated sleep....in that episode , the president was getting therapy about his recent bout of insomnia..i went tot sleep safe int eh knowledge that i am not alone, that it happens to the best of us....i wish that guy from chicago hope would come and help me figure out why its happening to me as well though! jed might be able to afford $375 an hour, but alas...

confessions of an insomniac..

i'm not a full-time insomniac, but i think i could qualify anyway..i sleep less than i need to, more often than i would like...
last night i think i slept for about two hours...
it is a trait i fear i may have inherited from my mother. fiona, if reading this, will no doubt do that eye-rolling thing she does when i do or say something that highlights how similar i am to our mother, in the light of her having got away with being not very similar to her at all.....!!
in the sleep department, fiona is a gifted and talented young thing, she has anaptitude for sleep like no-one i know...
how does that work?! we have the same mother!
its a capacity for fretting that gets you into sleeplessness. she appears not to have been saddled with that one either!! but alas i have, and so i seek peace and pursue it.
when i first became friends with the lord, i sought peace like i was on a peace-seeking mission. i had guns and everything.
i'm joking of course
but even as a child i had a period of a few months when sleep eluded me, when i was about eight...
fun, hey?!
i'm not sure why i'm putting this on here, but its something about me that you may not know. and it sucks.

a well-earned break..

for you, dear readers, from my blogslack..
you may not actually want such a break, you may well have given up reading this page long ago in my absence, but here i am, to break the silence (again!)

for my beleaguered body, from nicotine..
at the start of this year i realised that once june arrived, it would bring with it a solemn mark of ten-years-since i started smoking. i have now stopped smoking. and yes i will believe you when you say you have heard it before. you have. but such as it is, i quit.

for jesus, from the bad press he too often gets from me on these pages
i love him. he did and spoke and made some wonderful things in me and for me this weekend. and has brought this last year's season of gloom to an abrupt and welcome end, as only he can. i remembered the merits of pushing in and persisting in asking, and all that's subsequent joy...i relived that feeling - long missing in my life- of knowing that jesus is right there. right there...amazing..

for me, from work, for a week
it started here and moved to swansea and thence to gloucester and via a wedding with barn-dancing, moved swiftly onto barcelona and a full, all-out strike from weight watchers for the duration of my stay there. i ate lovely food, took lots of photos and made some new friends. i finished reading the tipping point, and anyone who's made it that far will know that it is a truly fascinating book, with a full-hearted recommendation from me..i stayed at sara's, where the sagrada familia was literally outside my window..i drank wine with lunch, as a rule, and very very much enjoyed the biggest bonus of my new special needs contact lenses - getting to wear my enormous sunglasses!! i had a right lovely time, and came back not sorted but readier than ever to get myself together and move on from feeling rubbish...

so i then took a break from taking a break from church and all its associated events, and attended much of the rising tide prayer conference over the weekend. and there i took a break from being an asshole. and i let god tell me off, love me up and get me out...

he's good at that.x