For a long, long time now, every morning when I start to wake up (no alarm), I keep my eyes closed. I clench them shut and silently, frantically plead with God: “Heavenly Father, help me. Heavenly Father, help me. Please help me. Heavenly Father, please, please, please help me.” Over and over and over and over.
I have no other words.
Eventually, the brightness of the sun and the increasing wakefulness of my mind intrude enough to force my eyes open. I stop begging God for help. I lie there briefly, then begin the process of getting moving.
Sometimes I wonder why this is a daily ritual for me. Am I afraid to wake up, so afraid that I beseech the Lord to keep me asleep? Am I afraid to face the world?
My morning pleas are not a prayer. When I pray, it’s a conversation with God, thanking him and honoring him and asking him for his will and his strength. Sometimes there’s fear, I’m still only human, but I can talk to him.
But in the morning, every single morning, my only awareness is a nameless fear and a desperate need for him to help me. Help me with what? I don’t know. All I know in those moments of blackness is that I need him, I need him, I need him. Help me, help me, help me.
Sometimes I think I’m asking him to keep my eyes shut. Help me to stay in the dark. Help me remain unconscious and keep me unaware of everything outside. Help me sleep, forever, because if I’m asleep I don’t have to see anything. Like myself, and others, and all the crappy things I do, they do, we do.
Maybe what I’m asking him for is the strength to open my eyes.
This I recall to my mind, therefore have I hope.
It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
They are new every morning: great is thy faithfulness. (KJV)
—Lamentations 3:21-23