All sense of adulthood leaves me at 5am. It’s a good thing that I don’t often seen that time of day because it’s not where I shine.

But it’s more than just the early morning grumbles. Don’t get me wrong, I acknowledge and understand that since I had my children I’m much less of a morning person. Because my day starts at 90 miles/hour worth of conversation, spilled milk, tatty hair, lost socks, and “why do I need clean underwear anyway”. It’s not an easy transition into day.

But that’s not 5am. My day usually starts about 7am with time to myself, maybe a little exercise, and then the surge of child-noise-bodies into the reality of my day.

But that’s not 5am.

5am is the time when I wake up scared.

5am is the time when I wake up worried and brooding over details of my life and other people’s lives that are out of control and out of my realm.

5am is the time when, if I wake up, it’s harder to get my feet under me, spiritually as well as physically.

I don’t know if you have those points in your life, that time of day when you wake and reserves are low and your eyes are clouded by the things that you should and could very well leave in God’s hands but just can’t seem to find his strong shoulders to rest them on.

We all have our 5am.

And there are times in life when 5am is an everyday and times when 5am is a rarity.

But they do come.

In those times when I wake and worry and brood and sometimes cry with the not knowing about sickness or health, riches or poor, faith or lack of faith, I have to strain to find God through the head chatter.

Because I want my mind transformed but can’t always dig deep into his truths in the place between awake and sleep.

Because there are times in all of our faith where it’s 5am and we’re not adults.

Times when we curl up into a ball and want everything to be different and want the sunrise to come.

Because with the sunrise comes help and hope.

In 2 Peter 1, the apostle Peter talks about the hope that we have in Christ.

“as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts” 2 Peter 1:19b

There will be times when we feel lost in our circumstances. When we don’t know the way out. When we don’t know how to help or how to hope.

And we panic and try to manage and manipulate and when we come to the end of our own understanding we feel like there’s nothing left.

But God is our light shining in a dark place. His faithfulness is new every morning and in the depth of the dark, he is there with us.

His promises are true and faithful. He has never steered me wrong.

At 5am, the time of heavy heart and clouded eyes, when I feel lost and vulnerable, I choose him. I choose the hope in sunrise and light in the dark. And his words resonate in my ears and heart. I remember his faithfulness and promises and hope starts to burn a steady small flame.

Because just as my children cry out in the middle of their dreamt terrors, I cry out to the one who helps me. And I seek him.

I seek the one who knows my face, the hairs on my head, my triumphs, my worries, my dreams and my fears. The one who goes before me into my day, into my life, and shelters me on all sides.

Because he is my help. He is the one I call at 5am, 11pm, morning and evening, he is with me. Days, hours, years don’t matter to him. I matter to him. My life and situations and circumstances matter to him.

And he is in the red glare of the digital numbers, where after wrestling with my thoughts, I can settle back into his peace.

He is in my 5am.