2AM

Waking up at 2am. The baby cries and I’m awake at 2am. He doesn’t need anything just to know I’m there. I give him a pat and tuck him back in. Back to sleep he goes and then I’m up at 2am.

At 2am my mind is always awake. It wants to go through lists, count wrongs and rights, and be busy when my body could really just use a break.

So I lay back in bed and pull the notes up on my phone. I type out the words, and the fears, and the triumphs running through my head. They pour out so easily at 2am, and sometimes it’s 4 or 5 before I can go back to bed. But that’s ok. 2am has become My time, My quiet, My peace, and the lifter of my head.

At 2am I search my heart as I write myself back to sleep. Dig a little deeper to my core. It hurts, but it heals when I go where the blood and the cross have already covered me.

Sometimes I don’t want to go everywhere my mind decides to travel. Back to people and places that my mind hasn’t visited in awhile. But at 2am things don’t seem to hurt as much and the words start to unravel.

I think we all carry with us hurts that seem to grip us. We think we’ll never get out, that we’re trapped, and that sinful human life has tried to trick us.

But I’ve found at 2am, the picture is a little clearer. We trick ourselves into believing we can fix ourselves, as the sin-sick world keeps pushing us to the mirror.

My truth comes out at 2am, that I can’t do life with just my own two hands. I need hope and faith in something bigger if I want to be apart of his grace-filled plans.

At 2am I really just need God. I don’t need anything else. His grace has pardoned all sins, not just mine but also the sins of others that I keep high upon a shelf.

If God can say your sins are covered then covered they shall be. I’ll find the strength to forgive you, and then I’ll be set free.

But freedom is a minute by minute choice. I’ll have to choose each second. So 2am will wake me each night until freedom in my heart has been reckoned.