She fell asleep while I was talking

I remember one of my roommates in college would get irritated with me when we would be talking late at night, lights out, ready to sleep...except for my thoughts that were wide awake. What irritated her wasn't that I would start talking at those hours; it was that I would pause and keep asking her if she was still awake. Often, the response was an exasperated, "Yes, I'm still awake."

I didn't understand it so well at the time, but one of my strongest love languages is Quality Time. When my roommate back in college would engage in that time with me and listen to me and talk with me, I felt loved and valued. There were times, though, when she would fall alseep while I was talking. In those times, having exposed my heart to vulnerability, her falling asleep brought a sense of being devalued and unloved.

Whatever our love language is, it's in that place that we often feel the most loved AND unloved.

After getting married, there were frequent times when my thoughts, as usual, would wake up and be ready for conversation as soon as the lights went out. There were occasional times when my husband just could not keep his eyes open and eventually fell asleep. Guess what emotions surfaced? Yep, those same devalued and unloved feelings. Eventually, I put up walls of self-protection and just chose to stop communicating at those times and buried the hurt rather than talk through it and find a way to make that communication work better.

This past year, a good friend and I were able to get away for a weekend. She has always amazed me with her ability to listen to me and she has told me, "You're easy to listen to; I don't know how anyone could fall asleep when you're talking. I enjoy listening to you." We're both 'night people', and to start our weekend away, after a full day, we drove all through the night...arriving at our destination at 7am...with me driving the whole time AND talking the majority of the time. We were both wide awake all through the night. She was so engaged and attentive. I felt so loved.

Last summer I spent a weekend with her. We had had an extremely full and exhausting day of ministry by the time we were winding down at 11pm, when she told all of us from our team that she was exhausted. So we went back to our room and got ready for bed. Each of us read over notes for the next day and then checked our email and facebook, chatting a bit as we did. Then, as we were winding down, I shut the light off and then asked her a question. We continued to talk for a little while, then I think I got a bit long-winded. When I heard the deeper breathing, I paused and quietly asked the most revealing question, "Are you still awake?"

Silence.

I remember feeling stunned and sad at first...and disbelief, but then there was an overwhelming sense of gratitude. In the past, I would have been hurt and offended, but in this moment, I remembered that she had said she was exhausted THREE HOURS earlier. And here she had still engaged in time with me for 3 hours!! And she had, quite literally, poured herself out for me to where she had absolutely nothing left to offer. I was humbled and immensely grateful for her sacrificial love.

The next morning I told her about it...but not as someone who was wounded or wanting to change her. But, instead, as someone who was deeply grateful and very, very richly blessed! Understanding Truth had set me free.