Thank God for…

Posted on March 24, 2007
Filed Under Daily News, Faith |

I’m preaching on Sunday, and part of my message is on being thankful to God. How we need to recognise His provision even in the small things in our daily lives. It’s something I’ve been challenging myself about for a while. Sure, I give thanks before a meal, but is that enough? Right now, I’m thankful for…

Air conditioning!

It’s starting to get hot here, and I’m told its going to get hotter. I spent several hours today [yesterday] in the coffee shop down the street. They’ve got central air conditioning and I needed to work on my sermon for this Sunday.

The sermon is starting to look okay. I’ll put the finishing touches on it in the morning. I just have to avoid what happened last time. I ended up doing a lot of work on that message late the might before I was supposed to be preaching (or to be totally honest, it was early on the morning I was supposed to be preaching). Then, when I got up to speak, with my brain addled by lack of sleep, I skipped over all the awesome revelations I had received the night before/that morning! Thank God the Pastor is allowing me to speak again.

Now, its almost 4 AM, and I have insomnia. It’s too hot to sleep! Even with the fan on full speed, I can’t get comfortable. So, for now I’ve given up on sleep and I’m blogging in the hope that once I’m not thinking about not sleeping, I’ll fall asleep. Thank God for my broadband connection.

I’ve suffered from insomnia to varying degrees for years and long ago I read someplace that the stress of not being able to sleep, actually keeps you up. So, the experts advise that instead of lying in bed worrying about being a wake, you should get up and do something completely different instead. So far, it’s not working!

The insomnia was at its worst when I was in Queen Mary’s after the operation. Then my sleeplessness was made worse by the fact that I was confined to bed all day and was not getting any exercise. So, I would lie there, watching the clock tick by. 2AM… 2:15 AM… 2:30 AM… 2:45 AM… 3 AM…

Of course being confined to my bed meant that I couldn’t get up and go into another room. Instead, I would listen to the sound of the geriatric patients around me. Some were snoring, some muttering in their sleep, and one guy was always causing trouble for the nurses, who had to tie him down to the bed in order to restrain him. I guess I was better off than that guy. I couldn’t sleep, but at least I could roll over. Thank God for not being restrained.

Then later, when I was transferred to the rehab center, I still had trouble sleeping. There, I was doing several hours a day of physiotherapy, so I was getting some exercise. But, I was in a larger ward, with even more geriatric men (more in the sense of a greater number, their level of geratricness was about the same). And, my bed was next to the washroom, which meant I was constantly being woken by nurses rushing by to get bed pans and clean diapers. Thank God for bladder control… I guess?