{"id":1512,"date":"2012-04-28T07:54:16","date_gmt":"2012-04-28T14:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/?p=1512"},"modified":"2012-04-28T08:12:50","modified_gmt":"2012-04-28T15:12:50","slug":"when-sleep-is-impossible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/when-sleep-is-impossible\/","title":{"rendered":"When Sleep is Impossible"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Jon Post<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I had surgery on my left shoulder a few years back. I remember waking up in agony, begging for a drug to numb the pain. I remember the slightest tremor in my wide, soft hospital bed sending knives through my left arm, shoulder, neck, and chest.<\/p>\n

I remember the state-of-the-art morphine drip seemingly doing nothing.<\/p>\n

I remember trying to sleep\u2026 sleep was by far the worst of it all. Awake after, at most, an hour of sleep\u00a0 because of an uncontrollable quiver of my arm ripping at perfectly placed stitches. Awake after another hour because rolling slightly on the high quality mattress I slept on caused my shoulder to erupt in agony.<\/p>\n

I remember trying to sleep\u2026 trying\u2026 for a month.<\/p>\n

So when 16-year-old Antonio went into surgery this week for a tumor on his neck\/shoulder,<\/p>\n

I remembered\u2026<\/p>\n

On Tuesday his surgery went well, his daily text message informed me. On Wednesday morning his message seemed to indicate he was doing well.<\/p>\n

Later that afternoon when I walked into the room he shares with 7 others in the surgery recovery ward I could see the toll it took on him to simply roll to his side so he could face me on his twin bed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHow are you friend?\u201d I asked, hopeful.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot great Uncle Jon.\u201d came the reply, \u201cIt\u2019s hard to sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

I remembered\u2026<\/p>\n

And looking at his little bed that he shares with his faithfully attending dad<\/em> I knew…<\/p>\n

My memories are nothing compared to this.<\/p>\n

Antonio\u2019s weary eyes glanced up at me as I told him I wanted to pray for his rest. His lips tugged at a smile but even that effort seemed overwhelming for him.<\/p>\n

Antonio\u2019s smiling father walked in with some cookies he\u2019d scrounged up for his son.<\/p>\n

\u201cMatakatira! (Good afternoon!)\u201d he greeted me in his language, Mand\u00e3o.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood afternoon friend! Are you well?\u201d My broken barely coherent Mand\u00e3o returned.<\/p>\n

His eyes glanced over his son and I saw the worry there.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am well,\u201d he replied, \u201cbut my son is not.\u201d<\/p>\n

He rattled off a new Mand\u00e3o phrase that I didn\u2019t understand yet and I smiled and reaffirmed my gratitude for his effort in teaching me his language.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was just about to pray for Antonio. Would you join me?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n

A smile and a \u201cYes\u201d later, our hearts heavy and our heads bowed, we prayed for rest.<\/p>\n

And my words and groans joined with Antonio\u2019s and his dad\u2019s as we expressed how eagerly we wait for the redemption of our bodies.<\/a><\/p>\n

And\u00a0 because my words fail even now as I write this, I pleaded with The Spirit to groan with me and for Antonio\u2019s rest.<\/p>\n

For now, Antonio\u2019s unredeemed body needs rest.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Jon Post I had surgery on my left shoulder a few years back. I remember waking up in agony, begging for a drug to numb the pain. I remember the slightest tremor in my wide, soft hospital bed sending knives through my left arm, shoulder, neck, and chest. I remember the state-of-the-art morphine drip…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1512"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1517,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1512\/revisions\/1517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jonandlayne.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}