FROM THE PASTOR

What Keeps You Up at Night?

In an episode of the television series “Young Sheldon” the famously germaphobic child genius is hospitalized overnight following emergency gallbladder surgery. Due to his anxiety about the setting in which he finds himself, Sheldon is unable to fall asleep. His harassed and aggravated nurse suggests he try counting sheep. Sheldon acknowledges the suggestion but reports the intervention would be ineffective for him. He is afraid of barnyard animals.

What keeps us up at night? Work responsibilities? A concern as to whether or not there will be a job? The kids?  Stresses in the marriage? Unpaid bills? The needs of an elderly parent? Illness or the suspicion of illness? The threat of war? The god-awful mess in which so much of the world finds itself?

Nicodemus couldn’t sleep. What he had heard about Jesus was unsettling and he began to question the assumptions on which his life was based. Nicodemus was a respected and successful elder, one acknowledged as “a teacher of Israel.” Yet, he wondered if somewhere he had taken a wrong turn and missed the journey God intended for him.

So, late one sleepless night, Nicodemus sought out Jesus. The conversation with Jesus supplied no easy answers, but rather more questions to be considered. Nicodemus was no more prepared for a restful night’s sleep than Sheldon would have been had he tried counting sheep.

But the conversation did begin self-reflection and gradual change that took Nicodemus’s life journey in a different direction.

Can’t sleep at night? A conversation with someone trusted may be the best starting place. Rarely are there easy answers and simple solutions but knowing that someone else acknowledges and shares in our questions and struggles can be a life-transforming gift of grace.

Pastor John E. Schumacher, BCC