Fresh Mercies

I woke this morning and my first thought was how wonderful to have a fresh supply of God’s mercy available to me. As usual, God is faithful. Fortunately for us, He doesn’t base it on our ‘performance’ but on His love for us. He gave us a miraculous vessel to live in and care for. We can rest in the Lord even when we do not rest our bodies properly.

Our physical energy can be used productively, abused and/or wasted. Once gone, regardless of how spent, we can’t get it back. People often say they need to get caught up on their sleep. There is no such thing. The daily time for refreshing the body is not cumulative. Once it is gone, it is gone. We can’t store it up like canned goods, it is available each day and then it is gone. Rather like the manna that fell from heaven. The people were to gather what they needed for the day. It spoiled if they tried to stockpile a stash. Refreshing our bodies is the same. We can’t sleep extra hours thinking it will carry us through the next week; it just doesn’t work that way.

My mother neglected herself when it came to caring for her physical health. She would stay up all hours of the night drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes and wonder why she never felt good. Daily we would come home from school to find her crashed on the couch. She typically would say her body needed the rest or she wouldn’t need to sleep. She was right, her body needed the quality rest it was being deprived of and she needed sleep. Sadly, she had gotten her body clock out of sync and to the point of being backwards. If she worked the night shift on a job, she would have been set. However, she was a mom with my young brothers to care for at home.

Her decision to stay up so very late, and, yes, it was a decision – in the beginning at least – had ripple effects that affected us all. Since she had barely been asleep when it was time for us kids to get up and get ready for school, she was a horrible, grouchy person to be around if wakened. When I was in high school and the little brothers were in their early elementary days, but I would get them up, feed them and get them dressed – all the while trying to keep them quiet so we didn’t wake the bear sleeping on the couch. It did not make for a harmonious way to start the day. Later, she went to work outside the home and had to change her habits and patterns.  She never did really understand the connection between proper rest and how she felt and interacted with other people. It was rather like pumping poor quality gasoline into your car and wondering why it hesitates, sputters and in general doesn’t run well.

We, like my mother, have choices to make. We can stay up late watching TV or playing games on the computer, as two examples, and abuse the bodies and energy levels available to us. We can also decide we like to feel good and get along with other people and maintain our bodies with proper rest and fuel. I have found it to be true for myself that I have a hard time making good decisions when my mind and body is not refreshed. My body has some issues that force fatigue and pain on me by their very nature and painful nights do not produce restful sleep. It’s an unfortunate combination. My job is to take care of my vessel and that often means foregoing any activities in the evening, to rest my body and mind so I can function to the best of my ability the next day. My hours and supply of energy must be used wisely. I have a mental picture of the electric meter spinning. It continues to spin whether I am using my energy wisely or poorly. I know I will need every drop of tomorrow’s energy tomorrow. I can’t draw from it today or have leftovers from yesterday to make up any shortfall.

This makes the beauty of God’s new mercies every morning all that much more valuable to me. I can’t count on my energy supply on any given day but I KNOW when I open my eyes that my God has a fresh new supply of mercy and grace available to me because He made the choice to give it to me. If that’s not an awesome way to start your day, I don’t know what is!