Can't Sleep and it's 4:00am!

Where I'm at: Living Room Couch
Weather: 57 degrees (thanks to weather.com)
Sights: The stair way
Sounds: The grandfather clock "bonging" 4 times.
Mood: Anxious, but starting to feel more calm and peaceful

I've been tossing and turning since 11pm. I must have slept a few minutes here and there, but nothing substantial. I read a little, turned the light out, closed my eyes...and angst filled my heart. This person that I wrote about earlier tonight - I can't get her out of my thoughts. I've dreamed of talking to her, what I would say, how I would say whatever it is I should say. And tears roll down my cheeks. Sleep alludes me. Even as I say I've dreamed, it's really just thoughts and imaginations running through my very awake brain. So, instead of laying in bed, in a hot room, feeling useless, helpless and anxiety ridden - I've decided to write out what's running through my mind.

Not only has my body been tossing and turning, but my thoughts and emotions have been too. I feel so inadequate, and if I'm honest, very afraid to reach out to her. I don't want to be rejected - that's hard to take from a stranger, but even more so when it's someone you love and care for. I'm afraid I won't have the right words to say, or worse say the "right' thing in the wrong way-self-righteousness. Nothing shuts someone down faster than that.

Lord, once again, I come to you, pleading, begging crying out for your comfort, wisdom and guidance. Give me confidence in You. Give me boldness and gentleness. Speak through me in mercy and truth. Show me how to love her unconditionally - whether she responds to me or not. Most importantly, may she see You in my eyes and heart. Help her to see my Father's eyes reflected in mine. Give me courage to share with her my failures, my screw ups - and how often I looked at myself with disdain, disappointment, and felt that I was worth nothing and that I could never change. It took me almost 43 years to finally stop believing these lies. Why is it that we as brothers and sisters in Christ have such a hard time truly believing and accepting who we are in You? Even as I've thought about all I would like to share with her, my mind focuses more on the negative of my life, than of the positive that comes from You. Do I do this because I am so afraid that I may fail? That once I've verbalized how much You have changed me, I will fall back into my old pattern of behavior - and once again it proves to me and others that change doesn't really happen? But it does!! I have changed! Yes, I've faltered along the way, made several big mistakes, and have stepped backwards a few more times than forwards. But my recovery time is much shorter! I'm learning and getting more comfortable running to you as soon as I see that I've gotten off course. And as long as I don't give up, as long as I continue to focus on You - little by little You will transform me and I will become.

I looked up the word "become" in the dictionary. It says To grow or come to be. It's not instantaneous. It doesn't happen over night. It takes a life time to "become". Is this what working our salvation out is? Is that the way we "become"? As I read through the verses below, keeping in mind the definition of "become" - it brings me comfort and a calmness - that I don't have to "be", I just have to be "becoming". Help me, Father, to share that truth with her - and to give her hope that You do change us, and You truly do make all things new.

John 1:12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

John 4:14 , "but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life."

Ephesians 2:22 "And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit."

Revelation 11:15 "The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: "The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign for ever and ever."

It's 5:02am. I'm going to rest in Him now.