By: Deanna Drogan

I couldn’t sleep. 1. 2. 33. 367. 1,050. The number of sheep I counted continued to grow, but I just became more and more awake as the hours passed. Eventually the amount of sheep I counted couldn’t even fit my brain capacity any more. It was a sheep overload.

I think we have all been here before. It’s almost like we want to sleep so badly that our body is like “Psych! We are going to make it harder for you to sleep than ever before.” We gaze at the light of the moon shining through the cracks in our blinds and repeatedly check our clocks to see how much time passes as the night continues. Then I think the worst is when you get so delusional that you can’t even tell when you are awake or when you have achieved a minute-long power nap that involves some bizarre dream that doesn’t make any sense, like sipping tea in the Sahara Desert with a purple alien.

Insomnia is not fun, and unfortunately it often is triggered by anxiety. A few years ago I experienced one of the longest bouts of insomnia I ever had. I did not get a full night of sleep for a whole month. No amount of essential oils, heavy-duty ZZZQuil, or peaceful podcast narrated by James Earl Jones could do the trick. I had just moved into a new apartment in Arlington, Virginia two weeks ahead of my new roommates. It was a time of uncomfortable transition and isolation, and every night I would lie in my bed feeling overcome with anxiety, racing thoughts, and restlessness.

Days continued to pass, and I began to feel just plain weird. If you struggle with anxiety, you know that even the slightest uncertainty in our bodies can send us into a full on spiral. I remember sitting at work feeling like I was literally outside of my own body. One day I felt so anxious and desperate for sleep, that I asked my manager if I could go home. I ended up driving myself to Urgent Care that day. It felt odd going up to the receptionist telling her that I was there because I felt weird and couldn’t sleep, but that’s exactly what I did.

Thankfully, I was able to see a doctor super quickly who gave me peace of mind as he confirmed that my physical body was not hanging by a thread and my heart in fact was not going to beat out of my chest. God always finds a way to bring humor into the stories we tell about being in the valley. This doctor was a sweet, humorous, little, older man who I will never forget. When I told him that I could not sleep and was dealing with anxiety, I fully expected him to immediately try to prescribe me with some kind of medicine or some kind of thoughtless quick fix, while instead he proceeded to calmly tell me about the ways that he copes through his own times of stress. “For me I like to garden,” he said in the absolutely most purest way possible. He encouraged me to come up with some creative activities to practice relaxation. I walked out of the office and to my car feeling a little more hopeful than when I walked in.

During this time, I was encouraged by friends and family to press into the Lord as much as I possibly could. My mind could not get into agreement with my heart in the confidence that this season would pass. So many told me it would, but I just could not believe that God was working and doing His thing as I pushed on through the valley. My sister had planned to come up during one of the weeks which was another blessing in disguise. Though I proceeded to lack sleep, at least I had someone in another room throughout the night. The first night she was here, we watched one of my favorite movies, the Help. Towards the end I began to feel my eyes get heavy. Closing, closing, heavier, heavier. YES. Eventually, I drifted off around the part where Hilly Holbrook wins two slices of Minny’s famous chocolate pies at the Junior League Benefit. Then BAM, credits hit and I am back to feeling like I could run a marathon. Then enter, another night of no sleep. End scene. Deanna takes a bow (or sobs uncontrollably)

Another week begins and I am prepping for a busy work trip to Miami, Florida. Feeling incapable of performing any work duties, I tried to figure out a way out of it, but was fresh out of ideas. So in Will Smith fashion, I prepared myself for “Bienvenidos a Miami.” I arrived to a warm and beautiful place feeling full of dread, but our first day there was filled with unexpected blessings and much sunshine at a picture perfect venue. I remember talking to my mom about the day on the phone and hearing her say “Dr. Jesus knew exactly what you needed.” That line has stuck with me. I’d like to say that is when the season ended, but the truth is I continued to feel paralyzed by anxiety and exhaustion, but proceeded to push through as God continued to make it clear to me that even in my weakest moments, He is strong enough to still use me to accomplish His work. The first couple of nights of the trip I invited the sheep back into my brain, aside from one night where out of nowhere, I slept like a rock the whole entire evening. It was almost just the little bit of ammunition I needed to keep me going.

During this season, there was a prayer in the Bible that I clung to. It was actually Jonah’s prayer from inside the whale (or large fish for those of you who feel strongly. I know who you are). I think Jonah had it a little worse than me. I think I’d rather count sheep for a year than be swallowed by a giant fish. I can’t even go snorkeling without feeling some sort of on edge.

Here is what Jonah said from the whale (or large fish) in Jonah 2:

“I called out to the Lord, out of my distress,
    and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
    and you heard my voice.
³ For you cast me into the deep,
    into the heart of the seas,
    and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
    passed over me.
⁴ Then I said, ‘I am driven away
    from your sight;
yet I shall again look
    upon your holy temple.’
⁵ The waters closed in over me to take my life;
    the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped about my head
⁶     at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
    whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the pit,
    O Lord my God.
⁷ When my life was fainting away,
    I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you,
    into your holy temple.
⁸ Those who pay regard to vain idols
    forsake their hope of steadfast love.
⁹ But I with the voice of thanksgiving
    will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
    Salvation belongs to the Lord!”

¹⁰ And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

If you are finding yourself in a tough season of anxiety, or even a tough season in general, I highly encourage you to study this prayer and not only that, but to read it out loud to the Lord. These prayers like Jonah’s or Hannah’s or Mary’s are in Scripture for a reason. The author simply could have just written that Jonah prayed, but instead gave us somewhat of a template that we can utilize when we might not have the words to say in our prayers.

There’s no coincidence that the climax of my rough sheep counting season took place Easter weekend. I flew home to Charlotte, NC for the weekend to be with my family. I proceeded to feel weird, but hey at least I could feel weird with family around me. I vividly remember watching the movie King Richard for the first time and not being able to focus whatsoever. I know it was a great movie, but I couldn’t necessarily tell you why since I couldn’t even focus on it. That weekend was filled with healing, nostalgic activities. We ate at one of my favorite Mexican places from when I was in high school, and me and my sister decorated bunny gingerbread houses (this was for sure my mom’s doing). I actually slept every night of this trip, but it would take me several hours from when my head hit the pillow to finally enter into dreamland.

Sunday morning roles around and we go to church for Easter. Word spreads fast at little southern churches. The church had a brunch following the service and I sat next to one of my favorite little girls in our church body. “How has the sleep situation been going?” She asked me like a 10 year old going on 45. I told her, “we are getting there.” She softly smiled.

Leaving home and heading back to DC was hard. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t cry. If I said I didn’t dread going back to an empty apartment and back to my sheep counting bedroom that was starting to look more and more like a pasture. I think I may have even heard a “bahh” one night. But things started getting better. I am sure part of that had to do with my roommates eventually moving in. Part of it could have had to do with a visit to a counselor. Part of it could have been me getting adjusted to my new space and the chaotic sounds that come from the busy road our apartment faces. But I was finally sleeping. I felt like Jonah being vomited out onto dry land. Ok maybe not exactly, but something like that. God had heard my prayer.

So why do I tell you all of this this? Why do I welcome you into my sheep counting life crisis? It’s because 2,000, 3,467, 7,689 sheep later, I came out of that season feeling quite stronger than before. See, the whole time I was lacking sleep I was absolutely confident that at any point, that I would simply self destruct, that I would lose my mind and all control, that I wouldn’t be able to accomplish the tasks I needed to, that some impending doom was coming (dramatic much?). The reality is that none of that ever happened. Apart from God we can do nothing. He is the vine and we are the branches. I think that the main lesson God was trying to show me here is that, in Him, I am stronger than I think.

“My grace is sufficient in your weakness” He says.

In fact, I find that when I am my weakest point, that is when God likes to show off the most. Sometimes I think God brings us to the point of exhaustion in order to show us that it is HE who sustains us, not us sustaining ourselves. Take a deep breath! What an absolute relief it is to know that we have a powerful Father who SUSTAINS us? Do not get me wrong, we ought to do our very best to take care of ourselves. God designed our bodies in such a way that we SHOULD get good sleep, we SHOULD exercise, we SHOULD eat healthy in order to function our very best. These are all good and important things.

But let us not forget that His grace is sufficient in our weakest moments, that in the remainder of that passage Paul says “for when I am weak, then I am strong!”

In this season of insomnia, I saw no evidence of God working whatsoever. In fact, I felt like He was almost working against me. But looking back I see His fingerprints all over it. So many moments that make me laugh, smile, and reflect on how He strategically provides in both small the and big ways. He cares about the details.

Friend, I don’t know where you are at right now. Maybe you are sick of counting sheep like I was, maybe you are feeling anxious, maybe you are dealing with a loss, maybe you walking through a season of depression. As cliche as it sounds, I encourage you to look to Jesus as your source of strength. Let Him show you what He can do through your weakness, because what He can do in your weakest moment is much greater than what you can do in your strongest moment.