Last Friday night, the Women’s Ministry gathered over Zoom to pray and we pondered that question. What keeps you up at night? World events, anxious thoughts, health concerns, issues of justice, family problems — they tend to mess with our sleep and with our peace. In this season of chronic information overload, it was beautiful to discipline ourselves to pause and talk to God about all the things on our minds.

Our women took an imaginary walk through their neighborhoods or complexes they live in and pictured the people living there. We prayed over those neighbors and the work God is doing. We spent time praying over our church and it’s leaders. We worked our way through our own needs and gave them over to the Lord. We kept asking ourselves, “What keeps you up at night?”

The honesty came in acknowledging that there are plenty of things that cause anxiety and stress, pain and sorrow. And the hope followed soon after as we continually reminded ourselves that although there is much to keep us up at night, we have a faithful God who offers new mercies each day. Community came as we asked the prayer team to pray over each individual request. Peace came as the Spirit flooded our minds with reminders of the faithfulness of God.

But this I call to mind,
and therefore I have hope:
²² The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
²³ they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
²⁴ “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”

Lamentations 3:21-24 (ESV)

Katie Smylie