The Long And The Short Of It

I was planning to write this entry when it was still yesterday, but I was visiting with a friend of mine today who I always talk to for a really long time, and even after he left to go back up to the Bronx, he called me when he got home and we talked until just now. It’s 1:53am, a time that I haven’t seen awake in a very long time. I’ve been a very early sleeper and early riser for several years now, and it’s all the Lord’s doing so I can’t take credit for that. He’s completely changed the way I live my life and getting into bed early, sometimes even as early as 9pm, is something that is normal for me now.

I used to consider myself a “night person” and I thought that there was no way I could or would ever want to go to bed early, but now when I look at the clock and see 1:55am which is what it is now, I get worried that it’s so late that I won’t get the rest I need. I read in a magazine that was given to me by a Seventh Day Adventist group that I worked with at a health fair that the hours before midnight are the most important hours for sleeping – that we need to get those hours into our sleeping time or no matter how much we sleep after midnight we won’t get the proper rest. I’ve felt that’s true in my own life and have experienced much better health when I get the right amount of sleep and when the sleep starts before midnight, so I believe what they say. The Seventh Day Adventists are some of the most knowledgeable people in the areas of nutrition and health and that fact combined with the fact that I feel the difference in my own life makes it so that I want to keep getting that sweet before midnight sleep whenever I can. Lately it’s been a bit difficult and this past week was even more so than usual because of some scheduling things at work that made it so that I didn’t get into bed early enough and had to get up early anyway, and combined with that, the fact that it’s now 1:59am is making me want to jump into bed straight away. But I’ll take a few more minutes here because I know there are a few things the Lord wanted me to share, and a few more minutes won’t make a difference now that it’s so late already – or is that so early? It’s 2:00am right now, so I guess that makes it officially early.

One of the things I read tonight in my emails – or really it must be today because I read it just now – is from a beautiful spirit I know named Jean Richardson. She writes a blog under the name of The Aunt Savant, http://theauntsavant.wordpress.com/, and her post from October 2 had this line that I wanted to share, “Life is too short to go through it angry.” That gave me a big smile when I read it, and it reminded me of something someone said to me years ago about people who choose to be miserable. There are times of course when we have things that bring true misery in our lives, but this was something that we were saying about people who have no real reason to be miserable, but they find something no matter how great the things around them are. They can have a beautiful apartment but it’s not good enough for some reason, they can have a delicious dinner made for them and it was home made and not having someone take them out to dinner, they can have someone take them out to dinner and the restaurant service is lousy they say, they can go to a different restaurant and “there’s something wrong with” the wine, the soup, the steak, the fish, the chicken . . . you name it, there’s always something wrong somewhere and they can never have anything go right. I was talking to a friend years ago about a particular person I knew who was like that, and I said, “Life is too short!” My friend answered, “No, actually, life is too long.” So I’ll respond here to the Aunt Savant and say that life is too long to walk around angry.

In Philippians 4:4 the Apostle Paul writes, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!” in verse 12 he says, “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or want.” He had found the most important thing, and that was joy, and He found his source of joy in the Lord.

In Nehemiah 8:10 we read, “Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength.” When we know where our help comes from (Psalm 121:1), when we know The One who is faithful and true (Revelation 19:11), when we know that no weapon formed against us shall prosper (Isaiah 54:17), we can even go to bed late – or early – it’s 2:18! – and know that everything will work out somehow. We may not understand how it’s possible, we may not see the solution. Things may seem like they’re headed straight for disaster, but as long as we know that we can rejoice, we can have the joy of the Lord. Life is too short to go through it angry – and it’s too long to go through it that way too. When we rejoice we can say that no matter what amount of time we have, the time will feel just right.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan