When I was back home in Salt Lake, my mom pointed out an interesting observation. One day, she looked at me and said, "Grace, do you know you cry out when you sleep?" I looked at her and shrugged my shoulders, "Yes? No? I don't know." My mom went out to say that for the past couple of days, I would cry out in the middle of the night in my sleep* and that she noticed that these cries weren't ones of anger or distress, but frustration. Her words made me think, and I couldn't help but resonate on some level. For a few months now I think I have carried a deep level of ambiguous dissatisfaction - nothing quite satisfies me and I keep wrestling with this void in myself, in my relationships with others, the list goes on. I am left wanting. And to some degree, these God-given desires for something more have grown into self-entitlement and constant grasping for [fill in the blank].
I am left wanting, because nothing can fill the void I feel at times. I think it's during these moments in my life that I am left with the cross and my palms wide open. I realize that when I demand things of God, I leave no room for his grace. I grow hard of heart, self-righteous, and cannot stop the downward spiral of discontentment. Perhaps what the Lord is asking of me this season is to simply place my desires at the foot of the cross, be brutally honest/repentant about my own pride and self-entitlement, and pray bold prayers that I would encounter his presence deeply this season.
*I am currently reading a book on sleep ("Why We Sleep" by Matthew Walker), and there is a chapter in the book where Walker talks about what happens when we dream during REM sleep. Walker says that more than anything, it is the emotions experienced during our waking hours that are transferred to our dreams.
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