Insomnia and God

I suppose I've always been a bit of a night owl. I function much better at midnight than at 7 am. Since the thyroidectomy, regaining my health has been a struggle. One symptom of low thyroid function is having a hard time falling asleep. It is also a symptom of low adrenal function. So I probably have a double dose of insomnia, since thyroid and adrenals are co-dependent.

In any case, I tend to be up late. And since high anxiety also tends to ride with low thyroid/adrenals, I typically have a lot of worry. So lately, I've been watching the late night preacher shows to calm myself down to go to sleep.

So, I'm bad with names and numbers anyway, and brain fog also rides with low thyroid/adrenals, so I unfortunately can't be very specific. I think it was on Creflo Dollar. Terrible name, but decent preacher.

Anyway, he was telling a story about how God will provide. In the Bible, Elijah was out in the wilderness (desert), and it talks about how the birds of the air provided for him. The birds brought him food to eat and water to drink, and took care of his needs.

Well, one little boy in his congregation heard this, and having the faith of a child, took it to heart. So the boy goes home, stands in his back yard, and yells at the birds to bring him $10 so he can donate it to the Church youth group or some project of the Church. He designated a tree, and told the birds to bring it to that tree.

At first, not much happened. But over the next week or so, a few pennies were found. Then, 2 and 3 dollars. When it stopped, the boy had collected over $175...something way beyond his expectation.

So Creflo explained that this is the concept of "abundance" and it is all over the Bible, but we haven't been taught about it for a long time because the idea of pious/poverty/deprivation has been taught. This was not God's will, for us to be poor and miserable. Why would any "outsider" see a disheveled, poor, starving person talking about God ever decide to believe? God wants us to be living in abundance as a blessing and also as a beacon to the nonbelievers.

Anyway, I heard this and probably went to sleep thinking about it. Made sense. Didn't seem hard. Just believe and God will provide.

The typical end of any late night preacher sermon is commercials for books, cds, dvds of that preacher that you can buy, and any profits will go towards the ministry. Some of them sound pretty interesting, and I kind of wanted about 35 dollars worth of these books/dvds. Of course, this was just before Christmas, and our money has been tight, and I didn't want to "frivolously" spend anything since I, myself, don't make the income around here.

So, I prayed. I asked God to provide $35 worth of "supernatural" money so I could buy from one of these preachers, whoever God wanted me to buy from. Birds could bring it. I could find it dropped by the road. $35 of money that Sean didn't get in his paycheck.

At first, nothing happened.

About a week went by...not even a penny in a parking lot.

Then, we decided to go at the last minute to the Knox Hills Christmas party that we had forgotten was going on.

And we enjoyed ourselves, but near the end, I had the urge to go play Bingo.

There were only 3 games left. The first game, I lost. Some guy won a big motorized toy car for his kid to ride in.

The penultimate game of the night, the prizes were a big kid's wagon and a basket of lotions/gift cards. I was NOT doing very well. A lot of numbers had been called. I thought it was pointless since somebody was sure to win very soon. But I thought in my head "God will bless me if He wants to bless me".

And what do you know, I WON! And it wasn't using a Free spot or anything. All five numbers had to be called.

Since we already have a wagon for the kids, I took the gift basket, not really looking at what was inside.


So turns out the basket had $120 worth of gift cards...including a $50 Visa card. $50 to spend on absolutely anything I wanted. $50 that did not come from Sean. $50 that we didn't know was coming when we woke up that morning. $50 "supernatural" dollars.

So I started wondering...OK, God gave me the $35 I had believed for, plus some extra in abundance...who does He want me to support in their ministry?

At first, I think I went to the Creflo Dollar website to look for the original books he had promoted, but the month had changed, and something else was offered that I wasn't that interested in. So I prayed again. Who gets the money?

The next day in the mail, I got TWO things from Jesse Duplantis, one of my favorite TV preachers. One was a newsletter he sends out, and the other was...A PRODUCT CATALOG.

OK, there's my answer. I bought a bunch of his sermons on MP3 and loaded it to my ipod and we listened to it on the trip to Florida. It was really perfect. It was also weird in a way because I was looking for something new to hear on the trip, and Jesse was the ONLY ONE offering sermons on MP3. And timing worked out because if I had bought the book/dvd tangible things, the shipping time would have not made it here before we left. I was able to download MP3 right then and there.

Take it for what you will, but this was one of the most profound things I've ever experienced. It still gives me goosebumps.