Upon a Midnight Clear

It is three o’clock in the morning, and all is still.

I can see the glow of the streetlight through the blinds.

Other smaller lights are blinking within the room, green and red.

It is completely quiet, and I am on my own.

I am very comfortable; the anesthetic and painkillers have rendered me perfectly poised between relaxation and deep thankfulness.

When patients are scared of surgery, it is sometimes a premonition they are going to die. I was scared today. So much so it pushed my blood pressure up.

I thought I might not wake up after the surgery, and if I did, the pain might be overwhelming. But now, here I am, and God is here.

As I lie in wondrous, pain-free comfort, my thoughts turn to a reading that challenged me to consider the one thing I had most frequently brought to God this year.

I discovered that I most often approached Him asking for His blessing.

And now, in the quietness of the midnight hour, I think about this question: Is it right to always be asking for something I need? Where are my acts of devotion, psalms of praise, or words of thanks and gratitude? What does it say about my relationship with God to always petition for blessing, to stand with my hand outstretched? In this, my midnight-clear moment, I realize it is not so much about my relationship with God but rather His relationship with me.

Do I fear His blessings will run out? That He will eventually reach a point of impatience with me? That perhaps He has only so many blessings to give, and I am close to reaching my quota? But as I lie in suspended animation, I see God is bountiful, and it is entirely within His nature to give—and my open hand places me in exactly the right relationship to Him.

It acknowledges His abundance and my need; His boundless reservoir of blessings and my tiny hand of asking; His generous, unstinting bounty in pouring Himself out for us upon another midnight clear so long ago. I will continue to ask, acknowledging that without Him, I can do nothing. Without Him, there is nothing.

Without Him, I am nothing.

Only in Him is there light and life and love and grace.

And so until at last my heart beats next to His, I can do no other than ask for His blessing.

Deanna Pitchford