Cries from my children used to wake me in the middle of the night, and after that, my teenagers’ calls saying they’d be late. Now, it’s a call from the bathroom.

There are also the unexplained wake-up calls, the ones that tug me out of sound sleep for no reason I know of except to get me up.  So I do. I get coffee and head to my spot.

But last night I couldn’t fall asleep at all. I arranged my pillows and covers and rolled over and rearranged my pillows and covers and rolled over again. I listened to music. I listened to an audiobook. 

I tried praying myself to sleep, only to discover that the tension I’d had with a family member was the thing that was troubling me.  

I wondered if I was the one causing our most recent disconnect, which naturally led me to wonder about the others we’d had.

“God, is it me?” I asked.

I’ve invested a lot in this relationship, and in the interest of getting along, I’d learned to let a lot of issues slide.  So had she.  But deep down, I’d always thought she was the real problem, until one day a few years ago it became obvious that I was.  Well, at least that I was just as much to blame as she was. 

Regardless of who was to blame this time, figuring out who was more to blame in general had become an obsession. I never found an answer that felt right or true. And maybe it was a bad question. 

So last night when I was praying-so-that-I-could-fall-asleep, not really praying-to-be-talking-to-God, I prayed for this family member.  I prayed for good health and success and joy and many more one-size-fits-all blessings, and then, I began thinking about our most recent trouble.  

And I realized, our sticky spots are getting stickier, and I’m kind of exhausted. Shouldn’t two people who claim to know God have peace and love between them? Was this relationship really worth all the struggle?

“What do you think, God?”

I was teary as my heart squeezed at the thought of what he might say. My right eye stung, because I’d run into a tree branch with my eyes open earlier that afternoon, not paying attention to the yardwork I was doing.

I’ve thought a lot about this relationship. The disconnects between us have felt crazy-making. I’ve tried to figure out how I needed to be different, or how she needed to be different. Mostly, about how she did.

I’ve thought about what happened in our childhoods and in our recent pasts to make us reactive. 

I read through a complicated personality book to find clues.  What was it about our personalities that made getting along so hard? And where did I need to grow in order to be a healthier self?  Where did she?

It was hard to say. 

There were a lot of words about how understanding our personalities was helpful, because when you did, you could see how your personality might take you down a negative path, and you could make the choice not to go there.  You could basically choose against your personality type. 

My head started to hurt after that.

Mostly, I wondered where was the power in knowing any of it?  Because I’ve read the whole book now, and I sure feel like I know a lot, but I’m not any different and neither is she.

As I lay awake and thought, I realized, I just can’t see.  I don’t know what I don’t know.  I don’t understand what I don’t understand.  I’ve thought and wondered and prayed and pondered, and I just don’t have the answer.

But one thing is obvious: besides not understanding us, I also don’t have the power to fix us. So naturally, I thought about God, since he’s got plenty of both.

Why had asking God for help not helped? Those hiccups between us were happening constantly. Maybe I’d only thought I’d sincerely asked for his help and wisdom, but maybe I hadn’t—not really. 

So I got focused. Any earlier desire to pray so that I could fall asleep was gone. I was now praying to call down the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.  Wide awake, I was earnest enough to get on my knees. I begged God to let me see.

“God, is it me? I mean, of course I don’t want you to tell me it’s me, but really, I kind of do. I want to see, even if what I see is that I’m the problem.  How can I get better if you don’t show me? And while I’m at it, why don’t you show me?”

I thought it coincidental that my eye hurt like heck in that moment, my salty tears irritating the injury. It reminded me of what Jesus said about removing a log in your eye, so you can see clearly to take out the speck in someone else’s. I wondered if I had a log, spiritually speaking, but couldn’t see it, even though I really wanted to, Lk 6.

After what felt like a long time, I finally looked at the clock, expecting it to be the wee hours of the morning.  But it was only 11:36 p.m.—hardly the wee hours.  It was awfully early to get up for the next day when this day wasn’t even over yet, but I was wide awake. 

I read the Bible passages for the next day from my reading plan, thinking I’d go ahead and get them over with. I’ve been reading Hosea this week, and chapter 6 was next:

“Come, let us return to the Lord.
He has torn us to pieces
but he will heal us;
he has injured us
but he will bind up our wounds,” 
Ho 6:1, NIV.

I certainly felt torn up and wounded. And here was the attention grabber: God is the one who does the injuring, and he’s the one who dresses and heals it. 

Sometimes I feel embarrassed for God when I read the Bible, like, Wow, did you really mean to write that? Don’t you realize how this makes you sound? But there it was on the page:  “He has torn us to pieces…he has injured us…,” Ho 6:1 NIV.

Just the day before, I’d read that those who trust God can’t be shaken. He surrounds them with protection, the way the mountains surround Jerusalem. And his protection isn’t just for one day in the future–it’s for right now, too. “…the Lord surrounds his people both now and forevermore,” Ps 125:2 NIV, emphasis added.

But if that’s true, why do bad things still happen?

I’ve had money stolen from my car, parked outside my garage, this very week.  I’ve had a falling out with this family member again.  I’ve nearly lost an eye.  And I wondered, where was God’s protection “both now and forevermore”?

Nothing should get past him, but these troubles have. Are his claims about protecting me true or not?  All the time I spend reading my Bible is a waste of time, if I can’t count on what God says to be dependable and true. 

Do problems slip in because he doesn’t pay attention? Is his claim to protect me more like well wishes on a Christmas card, because he’s just not careful, not powerful, and doesn’t really love me? 

Now that’s disturbing. 

The only alternative I could think of was to believe that even my troubles were part of God’s protection, because they worked in me something I couldn’t, something I needed.

I didn’t like this choice either, to be honest.

But I remembered what Paul says about trials proving character and giving hope.  I wondered if the tearing-and-injuring God does is a vital part of the healing-and-binding up he does, too. That’s how it works in weight training—muscles build back stronger after they’re torn by heavy lifting, Ro 5:3-5.

I couldn’t live with the idea that God didn’t really care or that he was too weak to protect me. Between the two choices, I decided to believe that God’s love included my pain and suffering.

Besides, hadn’t he proven himself to me all my years?  And wasn’t I the one who wasn’t motivated to go after him unless I was hurting, and even then, it was to get it over with?

I kept reading.

And here was another I-don’t-believe-I’da-told-that verse: God describes himself as the lion who devours and as the mama bear who attacks her own cubs for wandering off. Clearly, God’s not opposed to doing whatever it takes to shape us up, Ho 13:4-8.

I couldn’t miss what was obvious: God was using my pain and suffering to get my attention.  What did he want to say to me? I didn’t know.

But the stick in my eye was beginning to make sense.  The hurt with my family enemy and the stolen money was making sense, too.  God let these things happen as part of his surrounding, protecting love to work in me something far better than a clear eye, cash money, and an easy relationship, important as those things are.

But what’s the far better thing?  

I looked back in my Bible to see what I’d missed.

In verse 2, Hosea says how long it will take before God revives and restores his people, and then I see tucked right behind that, the-far-better-thing I was looking for, “that we may live in his presence.” Not “will live,” as in one day, but “may live,” as in now, Ho 6:2 NIV.

There was more, so I kept reading:

“Let us know the Lord;
let us press on to know him.
As surely as the sun rises,
he will appear;
he will come to us like the winter rains,
like the spring rains that water the earth,” 
Ho 6:3 NIV.

Spring, summer, and fall, I’m obsessed with my yard, but come winter, I abandon it to the weather until it gets warm again.  Already the ground outside on this December day is spongey and saturated.  God, are you kidding me? You’re saying that you want to give me so much of yourself, that I’m waterlogged with you?

God doesn’t promise that all my problems will be resolved when I press on to know him more.  But he does promise his presence. As dependably as the sun that will peek through the woods outside my window tomorrow morning, as assuredly as the rains that soak the earth, God promises to fill me with himself. 

When I think about all that I want in life and all that I need, I realize that what I most want is just one thing: I want more of him.

I’d been begging God to open my eyes about me, but what he did was open my eyes to him. It was such a kindness to get an altogether different message from the one I’d been bracing for. Rather than digging into me, he reminded me that digging into him and his word is what I need. 

He is my treasure.

Turns out, I did have a log.  Zoomed in on myself it blinded me to God. Worrying that I was The Problem or who was more The Problem was a misery that kept me chained in the Me-Pit.  Mercifully, who was to blame no longer mattered one whit. 

God had torn me.  God would heal me.  And he would fill me with himself, because he promised.

Such an amazing thing to be able to see.

The personality book I mentioned is The Wisdom of the Enneagram by Don Riso and Russ Hudson.