4am - a 'useless life'
I woke today at 4am feeling very cold and generally itchy. Despite my attempts to go back to sleep it failed and finally I gave up and made a cup of tea at 6am.
I have now had 3 mugs of tea and am sat in bed with the heating on full and feel somewhere near warm finally. There has been sneezing too so I'm not sure whether this is a viral thing or some kind of allergy .. Time will tell.
The day was always going to be a little difficult from a silent prayer perspective. Yesterday was my visitor day and while I do enjoy these, they also seem to knock me out of rhythm with my usual periods of reading and silent prayer. I feel that that should be my normal state of being and that, after these visits, I should be able to just slip back into my usual routine, but this rarely happens.
So far, I have done a very small amount of reading and only 10 minutes of silent meditation. Perhaps it is whatever is causing these symptoms, but, if I'm completely truthful before God, all I feel I want to do is to do as little as possible and watch 'junk' films on TV.
Should I feel guilty about this? I don't know if guilty is the right word but it feels like if I do pray, it will be insincere prayer. Is that valid and genuine prayer if I do? I don't know.
In Matthew 11:28 it says “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”. It may be simply tiredness or it may be a feeling of idleness and lethargy, I'm not really sure.
Perhaps the answer I need to give myself is that it doesn't really matter how I feel when I pray. I can simply rest in silence before God, however I happen to feel that day. Even if, on this occasion, it may be partly down to my own (sometimes) idle nature.
