It’s four am in the morning and I am up and sitting in front of the computer because I don’t want to keep Sandi awake. It’s another one of those nights where my mind gets stuck on something and I can’t find my way clear to relax and go back to sleep.

Sleep eludes me this morning, as have many in the past, because of some work related situation— a situation where I can’t remember if something that was supposed to get proofed and corrected before being sent to get printed—actually did. It’s not like this is a new situation—there have been numerous times in the past where I will wake up in the middle of the night and remember something work related and not be able to get back to sleep easily until I figure out whether something has or has not been done.

I can say that most times, the work has been done and corrected and this is just a way that the enemy of my soul (the devil) has of tormenting me. The foothold that he has in me is my basic insecurity and the fact that life often moves to fast for me to keep up with and process correctly. So things in my mind are not correctly closed out and finished and are left for me to deal with like an open file on a computer. And if the devil can’t find and bring to my rememberance a few open files to worry over, then I can probably find a few on my own.

Put this work related stuff together with the rest of what is rumbling around inside of me and what do you get—a partially sleepless night.

So today, I will take a much needed day off from work and begin to tackle the garden which, due to many circumstances this past fall, is a mess and needs to be cleaned up before any spirng stuff can begin. I still have corn stalks in the ground and lots of dead stuff to remove, pile up and burn. I am actually looking forward to it—it’s been another one of those open files which needs to be closed properly and saved to the hard drive of my mind.

Also, the weather forecast is calling for a 55 degree day today and I will just have to force myself to take that bike ride I have been missing these past few weeks of winter and very cold and windy conditions.

In the meantime I will get what needs to be downloaded off my mind and hopefully go back to bed by five.

As I think about open files, I remember another thing that was going on in my mind before I woke up. I was in the process of forgiving a friend who hurt my feelings the other day by being a little more than rough with his words to me as we ate lunch in a restaurant with several other people. In the process of releasing this hurt through forgivness (closing the file) I was also reminded that I needed to ask for forgiveness for my reaction to his hurful words and my subsequent attitude towards him.

This one is between me and God as I will probably never have an opportunity to address this with the person involved. I can change my life through forgiveness and perhaps in this process I will also release this friend as well. I guess that is what we call grace. The person who builds his house on the good foundation is the one who hears the word and does it.

And this reminds me that I probably need to take a few more days off in the weeks to come and work on closing some more files. The basement really needs my attention and then there is my closet and then……