interrupted

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Why Your Sleep May Be Interrupted

Since the new year I have not slept that well, and now I know why.

why your sleep may be interrupted

You would think that with a new year everything restarts, that at midnight on January 1 we hit the reset button … unless you stayed up into the new year and, in that case, the reset happened when your head hit the pillow.

And that is the very culprit of my poor start to 2021 – my pillow.

Pillows are an important part of your sleep technology, according to Sleep Country. But since they are in the business of selling you mattresses and pillows, maybe we should take that idea with a grain of salt.

Yet my pillow is driving me nuts. 

When it’s on the bed, before I climb in, it looks so good, fluffy, lying there inviting me to lay my head down on it. 

But as soon as my head presses into the pillow, it collapses into nothing. 

It’s like in the old cartoons when they were trying to catch a lion. They would dig a hole and then cover it to look like it was just the jungle floor. 

The unsuspecting lion would come along in all his glory and walk confidently over the spot. The covering would collapse and he would fall into the pit. 

When I put my head on my pillow, it’s like my head falls ten stories to the mattress below. At least it is a mattress down there and not a cement floor.

So I’ve been crunching up my pillow to give it some substance. Then, of course, as soon as I move, that soft bolder I’ve created loses its shape and bang, down to the mattress my head falls again. 

As a result, my neck has been a little sore during the night. It’s also causing problems with cutting off circulation to my arms. 

It can be frightening to be half asleep and realize you can’t feel your left arm. And when you fling that half dead arm from under your chest you have to lie still to wait until all those pins and needles leave your appendage before you can move again to a more comfortable position. 

That’s why my condition is serious and it is also causing me to dream more. 

At the beginning of a new year it is good to dream, to dream of what you want to accomplish in the new year, dream about projects you want to start, or things you want to stop. 

But the dreams I’ve been having are disjointed, wild and they don’t make sense. They do nothing but make me restless and cause me to wake up feeling unrested after my night’s sleep.

I’m only a couple of days into the new year and already I’m wondering when this year will be over … and I’m not even thinking about all the COVID issues that are still ahead of us. 

So I’ve made a plan, and I’ve already executed it. This morning I stole a pillow from our spare bedroom. 

We will see if I sleep better tonight. 

Here’s the thing: In the beginning of a new year, we can feel restless for a number of reasons. One way to deal with that restlessness is to take time to seek God and come up with some goals for the year ahead. Consider what God might want to start or stop. You might find you sleep better too. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How can you start the new year off right? Leave your comments and questions below. 

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My Peace Was Interrupted

Have you ever gotten away for some peace and quiet, to a place where you can relax and think clearly, only to have your peace interrupted with noise?

My Peace Was Interrupted

That happened to me the other day.

I made my annual trip to our cottage to think, pray and plan for the year ahead. One reason I go there is that I relax well there, and the other reason is that it is quiet.

Albeit the occasional noise of a lawnmower or circular saw breaks the quiet, but for the most part it is very peaceful. All our neighbours are seniors or their kids have grown up. Lily and I are the young ones in our little section.

But last year, near the end of the summer, a family moved in just kiddy-corner to us. This family broke the pattern. They have two young children, somewhere between 3 and 7. 

I remember having kids that age, but what I don’t remember is how loud they were. … either that or this is the loud family! It seems like it’s party central all the time at their place. The kids are up early and the parents are up late.

There is nothing wrong with it most of the time – except when I’m here specifically to be quiet, reflective, to think and plan.

When our kids were young, I never thought of how loud we were as a family – especially the kids. Kids’ high pitched voices without a volume control makes for some serious noise.

Even if an adult is loud, the lower tone in their voice usually only leads to muffled noise. With kids, however, you can hear every word distinctly and clearly.

Kids are busy, too. They are not going to just sit and read. … I’m not even sure one of the neighbour kids is old enough to read. 

These kids want action! They want entertainment! And they want it all the time! 

Right now there is a road hockey game going on at 10:00 in the morning right outside my window.  

It’s summer here in vacation land – who’s playing street hockey right now? 

Growing up I played plenty of road hockey. We played mostly in the spring and then in the fall. In the heat of the summer we were down at the river catching frogs or something. 

I realize that some kids are louder than others. Some instinctively play quietly. They play with each other. 

But these kids need to be yelling and they need their parents involved. All their play is a big production. 

They have two full-sized hockey nets on the road right now. I don’t think the game is going that well for the oldest kid because he’s telling everyone that the game is over. 

No one seems to be paying attention to him, however, so he keeps reminding the adults and his sister over and over again as they play around him. 

It’s noisy, but it’s also Saturday morning. They didn’t arrive until last night … and I’m leaving in an hour or so. 

So glad they were not up for the week.

Here’s the thing: You can do your best at setting up a quiet place to spend time with God. But what you still may have to battle is how loud your thoughts are, and how distracted your mind can get. Sometimes you just have to work through those noisy sessions and find a way to focus. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What distracts you the most when you are spending time with God? Leave your comments and questions below. 

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So . . . I’m Easily Distracted

Writing a sermon is a curious thing. I’ve been writing them weekly for over 17 years now and I still haven’t found a formula that makes the process easy and predicable. There are parts that I have systematized, but the actual sit down and write part, it’s like a new adventure every week.

distracted guy

Let me give you a little insight into my week. I’m pretty regimented early in the week because I know if I’m not ready to write by Thursday, the end of the week will be a disaster.  And we don’t like disasters, do we?

When I first started to preach, I worried about staying up all night Saturday to get ready for Sunday morning. That fear was real because every paper I ever wrote from high school until the day I graduated with my degree, involved burning the midnight oil.

The day after a paper was due I was a zombie. I needed coffee bad – except I didn’t drink coffee, so I’d substitute Super Big Gulps to get me through.

There was no way I would be able to sustain a weekly routine like that for very long. So I decided I needed to have a routine for preparing messages: I start on Monday and do a little work each day.

But I don’t start writing until Thursday or Friday and that’s when all the scheduling, routine, and systematizing goes out the window. It’s new every week. There are distractions, interruptions, unexpected issues to deal with.

But probably the worst issue of all is me. I need to be mentally and emotionally ready to write my sermon. And if I’m not, oh baby, it’s going to be a long day.

That’s what it was like this week. I had a great Thursday, finished my outline, even wrote the introduction to my message. But Friday … I just couldn’t get my mind to settle down. I might have ADD – but in my day the medication for that was a slap on the back side of the head and a scolding of “PAY ATTENTION!”

So Friday I was on my own with no chemicals or synthetics to bring my mind into sync with my sermon. My mind even had the added bonus of a few interruptions to my day that lured it to wander in unnecessary directions long after the interruptions ceased.

By the afternoon, everything and anything was a distraction. The lint that glistened in the light streaming through my window caught my attention for a while. I read an email that lead me to a website which led me to watch a video debate on science versus creation.

My message is not on creation this week. It was interesting, but I couldn’t even extract an illustration to work into my sermon. I was so distracted that I forgot I had brought a lunch to work, so I went out and bought my noon meal, only to come back and see my lunch sitting on a table in my office!

It came in handy because I worked so late I ate that forgotten lunch for dinner and kept working.

Here’s the thing: You may not get distracted like me, but every one of us runs into distractions of some kind. When we get distracted from serving God or spending time with Him, that’s when it’s time to employ a strategy to deal with those distractions and get back on course.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you been distracted in the past?  Leave your comment below.