Hello, and welcome to another blessing Sunday. Traveling with me on this path are
Abbie Johnson Taylor
and
Lynda Lambert who shared the idea with me

When I was younger, I used to resist sleep with all my might. To me, going to bed felt like giving up on the day, a surrender of time when there was always one more project to tackle, one more goal to chase, or one more task to finish. I fought against rest and wore my late nights and early mornings like a badge of honor.

But then I found myself in a fight for my life against cancer.

When your body becomes the battlefield and you have to summon every ounce of faith, grit, and endurance to send cancer running into full retreat—your entire perspective on human strength shifts. You learn very quickly that rest isn’t laziness, and it certainly isn’t a defeat. Rest is the quiet arena where God heals us.

That shift in perspective made me think about a story my grandmother used to tell. She immigrated to America from Norway when she was just eleven years old, and on that long ocean crossing, her ship was caught in a storm so violent that the vessel was tossed almost completely vertical on the waves.
Can you imagine being eleven years old and looking straight up at the sky while holding on for dear life? I’m willing to bet even many adults on that ship were shaking in their boots and needing a fresh change of clothes when it was all over! It is a terrifying thing when the world beneath your feet feels completely out of control.

Yet when a similar storm hit the Sea of Galilee in Mark chapter 4, and the disciples were in a total, screaming panic—much like the passengers on my grandmother’s ship—Jesus was in the stern, fast asleep on a cushion.

If Jesus himself needed sleep, who on earth are we to fight it? To think we can run on fumes, out-hustle our human limitations, and bypass the very rest our Creator took is the ultimate epitome of hubris! Jesus wasn’t sleeping because he didn’t care; he was sleeping because he trusted the Father, knowing that although He was Divinity clothed in human skin, His body required rest to sustain His spirit for the work ahead.

Sleep is an act of trust and humility. When we finally close our eyes, we are quietly admitting, “I am not holding the universe together tonight. God is.”

Having come through the fire and standing on the other side, I view sleep with a whole new sense of reverence. It is a divine mechanism for repair—a physical and spiritual reset button built into the rhythm of creation. Every night we get to lie down, rest our weary bones, and let our bodies rebuild is a quiet, steady blessing.

If you are in a season where you’re fighting hard right now—whether against illness, stress, or the heavy storms of life—don’t treat rest like the enemy. Lean into it. Let your body heal, let your mind quiet down, and thank God for the grace that meets us in the dark when we finally let go.

35 On that day, when evening had come, he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side.”

36 And leaving the crowd behind, they took him with them in the boat, just as he was. Other boats were with him.

37 A great windstorm arose, and the waves beat into the boat, so that the boat was already being swamped.

38 But he was in the stern, asleep on the cushion, and they woke him up and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

39 And waking up, he rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Be silent! Be still!” Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.

40 He said to them, “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

41 And they were filled with great fear and said to one another, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”

Lord, help me realize more each day that you’ve created so many things for our blessing. Help me daily to honor those things and by so doing live a life that pleases you. Amen.