Wouldn’t it be great if we could be like Maisy in this picture? Immediately content with a soft blanket (on my lap, BTW) and her favorite chew bone.

Throughout the years, when my head hits the pillow at the end of the day, my emotions have been all over the chart. And I don’t mean necessarily in one single night. I’m talking about the trajectory of my emotional state as I reach the end of each day, and I get a sense of just how am I feeling.

While it’s hard to describe, I’m hoping you know what I’m referring to. There’s usually one main emotion or feeling that settles in once we leave the madness of the day.

Even though this memory is 15-20 years old, I clearly remember so many nights when I went to bed and felt an overwhelming sense of peace, gratitude and happiness. Yes, it was during some of the best years of my life with Dale and I felt like virtually everything in my life was going well. What a beautiful way to fall asleep during that season. I’m grateful that I still remember how that felt.

I wrote a blog about 18 months after Dale’s death and talked about the inventory I took of my day and how my emotions dictated my reality. Check it out here to see how that’s not the healthiest way to view our lives!

But, unfortunately, it is still something I have to work through each evening as my head hits the pillow. The raw nature of my pain has certainly eased up in the five years since I wrote that particular post. And yet, I have a new challenge that I’ve been struggling through for the past year or so. Just last night (Friday), God gave me one of his infamous insights that I’d like to share with you.

In these most recent years, what I feel each night is unrest, uneasiness, apprehension and even a sense of angst or dread.

So each night, I try to analyze what is causing me to feel these unwanted emotions. I run through a list of options. Was there something hurtful in my day? Did my sports teams lose today? Are there relationships that need some attention? Is there a big event coming up that makes me nervous? Have I disappointed God with my thoughts or actions today? I ask God to give me a reason.

While I might occasionally answer “yes” to some of those questions (especially the “thoughts or actions” one), I was mostly coming up blank, without a good explanation. Eventually I would drift off to sleep and think no more on it … until the next night.

God answered my “What’s up with this?” prayer last night. While I started off with all those “angsty” feelings, all of a sudden, my thoughts changed and I was contemplating how glorious it would be in Heaven.

I envisioned meeting Jesus for the first time face-to-face, and expressing the full weight of my gratitude for his sacrifice on my behalf.

I pictured the reunion with my beloved Dale and what incredible joy that would bring.

I thought about all my faithful loved ones who had gone before me, some decades ago, and how amazing it would be to catch up with each and every one of them.

I imagined, as best anyone can in this life, what it would be like to have no more pain or sorrow or grief for the rest of eternity.

Those beautiful thoughts, straight from God’s heart to my mind, completely eradicated all those negative emotions from just a few minutes before.

God replaced them with… his peace!

It was shocking to me, but in the best way possible! Here’s the lesson God wanted me to learn.

All those years ago when I did feel a sense of this same peace, I see now that the source of that peace came from the circumstances in my life at that time. I felt the peace and joy and happiness because that’s the kind of trouble-free life I was living.

But God reminded me, last night, that true peace, joy and happiness come from focusing not on our earthly realities, but on the promises from God – whatever those are that speak deepest to you.

Personally, I know of no better way to put the cares and worries of this world into perspective than to meditate on the day when God redeems all of that and brings us into perfect fellowship and communion with him.

Yes, I will still live the life God is calling me to in this place and time. But I will bust those worrisome nighttime tendencies with a healthy dose of what lies ahead.

I close with the King James Version of this beautiful promise, because that’s how I learned it as a young child. The meaning and promise are exponentially deeper now.

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace,

whose mind is stayed on thee:

because he trusteth in thee.

Isaiah 26:3