At my age, I feel like I am an old wineskin, a bag of old bones. But I have discovered the power and the magic of sleep. I can see and feel now how the Lord makes me anew every night in my sleep so that I am good as new when I wake up in the morning, ready to take in new wine. Sometimes, He fills me with the best old wine – fully aged.
As I lie on my bed waiting for sleep to come, I go over my day. If it was a happy day; I think of and thank God for all the people who have been His angels and have brought me great joy, love and happiness. If it was a terribly bad and challenging day; I go over all the pains and stresses I had to go through during the day and offer them up to the Lord, asking Him what He would have wanted me to do differently. If it was just an ordinary, uneventful day; I mull over the moments and try to see where and when and how I encountered the Lord even in the ordinary events of daily life. Sometimes, I would zero in on particular moments I would want to long remember – be they happy or painful ones – and carry them with me in my sleep to continue them with the Lord even as I am fast asleep.
Always, I wake up refreshed. I feel I just went on a refreshing walk and talked with God. I usually remember my dreams. But what I wish for is to be able to remember just one specific moment during my sleep that the Lord is with me.
Jesus said, “No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.
If he does, its fullness pulls away,
the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins,
and both the wine and the skins are ruined.
Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”
Mark 2:21-22