It happens between about three and half past four, and it is always the same shape.
She wakes. Not from anything. There is no dream and no noise and nothing she can point to, and she has stopped looking for a reason because there does not seem to be one.
And what she does, lying there, is say one name.
Not out loud. In her head, the way you say a word you are trying to remember. Just the one name, and then a gap, and then the same name, and then a longer gap, and so on until either she sleeps or it gets light.
She has counted once and stopped counting because it upset her. It was somewhere past forty.
Now here is the thing that has made this worse rather than better, and it is not the waking.
She was raised on a particular verse, and it was quoted at her often enough as a girl that it is welded on. When you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words.
She was taught that meant: God is not impressed by repetition. Which she accepted, and which sounds right, and which has now turned round in the dark and started pointing at her.
Because what is she doing at ten past four if it is not repetition? She is saying one name forty times. By the standard she was handed at nine years old, she is doing precisely the thing the verse warns about, and she cannot stop, and she has begun to suspect that the reason she cannot stop is that there is nothing else left in her.
And that is you awake at ten past four, or you would have put this down.
Two things about that verse, and then the one that matters
Let me take the verse off you first, gently, because it is doing damage it was never meant to do.
Read what Jesus actually says is wrong with the empty phrases: for they think that they will be heard for their many words. The problem He names is a belief about mechanism. It is people piling up language because they think volume works on God, the way you might press a button repeatedly.
That is not what is happening at ten past four. Nobody wakes at three in the morning and says a name forty times because they think the fortieth will do it.
You are not heaping up empty phrases and you never were. It is written that they think they will be heard for their many words (Matthew 6:7), and the thinking is the fault in that sentence and not the repeating. The Holy Spirit is not standing over you counting.
And the second thing, which settles it: three chapters later in the same gospel, Jesus prays in a garden, and Matthew records that He went away and prayed saying the same words (Matthew 26:44).
The same words. Three times. Written down deliberately by the man who wrote down the warning.
Now here is the passage that is actually yours.
Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.Romans 8:26
A groan is repetitive. That is what a groan is. Nobody groans once, elegantly, and stops.
You are doing the thing Paul describes and it is the deepest praying in the passage. It is written that the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:26), and the sound He names is not an argued sentence. The Holy Spirit has been in that dark room saying it with you, forty times and past forty.
And I want to say something about the name.
You have decided the repetition means there is nothing else left in you. Turn that round.
You have something in you so large that only one word will hold it, and rather than diminish it into a sentence you have been saying the one word that carries the whole of it, over and over, for hours, in the dark, on your own.
That is not emptiness. That is the opposite of empty.
You are not scraping the bottom at ten past four. You are carrying something too big for a sentence and you have found the only word wide enough. It is written that He who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit (Romans 8:27). The Holy Spirit is translating the whole weight of it upward, and the Father is receiving all of it and not forty separate fragments.
So lie there and let the shame go, because it does not belong to you.
You are not going to construct a better prayer at ten past four, and nobody here is going to hand you something to say instead, because a form of words at four in the morning is one more thing to fail at while you are exhausted.
You are going to turn both hands over on the duvet, palms up, and say nothing at all for one breath. Not even the name.
Not to still your mind. Not because silence produces anything. There is no technique here and there are no levels, and forty repetitions do not score below a paragraph.
You are going to say nothing for one breath because Somebody in that room is already saying it, and for the length of one breath you are going to hear that rather than your own voice.
You are prayed for through the whole of the ninety minutes and not only in the gaps. It is written that the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God (Romans 8:27). The Holy Spirit has been in every one of those nights, and He was not waiting for you to say something better.
Then say the name again if it comes.
You have not been heaping up empty phrases. You have been saying the one word that holds it, and it has been carried every time.
Declare this over yourself
Say them where you are. You are in Christ and Christ is in you, and that standing was given to you rather than earned by finding better words. Scripture is the ground under every line and the Holy Spirit is what makes them live in a person. Whatever He does with these nights is His, and the outcome is His.
- Repetition at three in the morning, you are not emptiness and you are not the thing that verse was warning about. It is written that they think they will be heard for their many words, and the thinking is the fault and not the repeating. He carries what I cannot say, and my prayer is heard now, wordless as it is.
- Shame that has been sitting on me since I counted past forty, in the name of Jesus you are put out of this room. It is written that in the garden He prayed a third time, saying the same words, and Matthew wrote both sentences down. The Holy Spirit is not standing over me keeping count.
- God, You search hearts and You knew the whole of what was in mine at ten past four. It is written that the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to Your will, so the whole weight went up and not forty fragments. I have not been scraping the bottom, I have been holding something too big for a sentence.
Romans 8:26
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