They’re calling it “coronasomnia.”
If you’re having trouble sleeping in 2020, you aren’t alone. Pre-2020, Americans didn’t sleep particularly well. Add in all the stressors of 2020, and our sleep problems have gotten worse. Prescriptions for sleep-aids are up. Hours of sleep are down. I’m assuming that purchases off TV infomercials are up also! It’s hard to relax when there are so many causes of concern.
The problem isn’t just getting to sleep, though. It’s also what happens when we’re awake. Studies are showing that cable news viewership is at an all-time high. Social media use and smartphone screen-time are up also. Sleep is one component of rest, but so is quiet distraction-free time. It seems that neither is coming easy for many of us this year.
With work now taking place mere feet from where we sleep, creating boundaries around work has never been tougher. Turning off the depletion and turning on the renewal is hard.
As a parent, I received word that my kids were going back online through the end of the year. This move was as disappointing for them as it is for me. It meant canceling plans I was looking forward to, shuffling schedules yet again, and resetting expectations.
I often think that I’m the only one who struggles with rest. When I heard the data I shared with you earlier, I began to think “we’re the worst people ever at resting.” But that’s not true either. In the most famous psalm, Psalm 23, David writes, “He makes me lie down in green pastures.” The text doesn’t say, “he sends me an email with a calendar invite to a day in green pastures.” Many of us would send a polite decline of that request, even from God himself. No, all too often, God has to make us lie down in green pastures.
This was the experience of two well-known characters in the Christmas narrative, recorded in Luke 1. In verses 5-25, Zechariah encounters an angel while carrying out his priestly duties. The angel shares the news of Elizabeth, Zechariah’s wife, becoming pregnant. Zechariah responds with disbelief, leading the angel to make him unable to speak. This condition lasts at least nine months.
Can you imagine not saying anything from this Thanksgiving until Labor Day next year?!
Zechariah isn’t the only one who is forced into discomfort. In Matthew 1, we read that soon after he returned home from his priestly duties, Elizabeth became pregnant, and “she went into seclusion for five months.” The events of 2020 can certainly lead us to read those words in a new light! We all know what months of isolation feels like.
Zechariah is forced into many months of silence and Elizabeth experiences many months of solitude. Have you ever considered what this time of silence and solitude made room for in their hearts? While they were waiting and watching, what did God begin working in their hearts?
There are four things rest, silence, and solitude can make room for in our hearts this Christmas season.
Frustrated plans give us a new appreciation for what we already have.
A friend of mine posted a quote on social media this week which said, “I thought 2020 would be the year I got everything I wanted. Now I know 2020 is the year I appreciate everything I have.” A husband who can’t speak and a pregnant wife in isolation will certainly put a kink in a lot of plans. While they were waiting for their son’s birth, I wonder what Zechariah and Mary began to appreciate differently.
Many of our plans have been frustrated this year, but what if we allowed God to make room for a new sense of appreciation for what has not been lost even as we grieve those things we won’t have or gain this year?
Being silent and still prepares us to speak and move with new intentionality.
When their son is born, Zechariah repeatedly declares his name is John. As his ability to speak returns, Luke 1:64 tells us that Zechariah begins to praise God. I believe that Zechariah praised God with his “new” voice because he’d been praising God in his silence. Is it possible that Elizabeth is glad to greet Mary 1:39-45 because she has a new appreciation for visitors after being in solitude for so long?
When we’ve lost a sense of intentionality, we can become haphazard and entitled. Disengagement, whether forced or chosen, can lead to an intentional re-engagement that renews us and others.
Embracing solitude means we have something new to offer the community around us.
Blaise Pascal famously wrote, “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” It’s not easy for me to embrace silence and solitude. I love people and I love talking. But whenever I step away from both, I find God revealing something to me, or in me, that better equips me to re-engage my voice and my community.
I would’ve loved to sit with Zechariah and Elizabeth after this season of life and ask them questions. “What did you learn about yourself? What did you learn about God?” They had something new to offer their family and friends because of what they’d experienced.
Experiencing the absence of something renews our joy when we experience it again.
We all know the famous phrase "familiarity breeds contempt." Before 2020, I think we had familiarity with many things we took for granted. Because of not being able to experience them, we've gained a new sense of joy. When our church regathered a few weeks ago after many weeks online, one woman found me after the service. "Never again!" she exclaimed. She said she would never again take gathering and singing together for granted.
What has given you a new sense of joy because you experienced its absence this year? What are you looking forward to enjoying next year because you can’t do it now? Absence can mean joy when presence returns.
No matter what our Christmas experience looks like, there is room for God to move in our hearts with joy, community, and even fun. While we might not have “room” for all that we want, we can make room for God to work in us and among us.
What if you allowed the silence and solitude of this season to make room for something new and needed in you? What if you embraced what you’re tempted to reject? What if you allowed Jesus room to do something now that you’d have a greater appreciation for and understanding of later?
What if this Christmas you decided to make room?
Scott Savage is a pastor and a writer who believes he has the best last name ever. He leads Cornerstone Church in Prescott, Arizona. Scott is married to Dani and they are the parents of three “little savages.” He is the creator of the Free to Forgive course and you can read more of his writing at scottsavagelive.com
