The loneliness of sleepless nights

Sleepless nights – they’re coming back and I’m frightened. I hate them. My mind churns round and round with unresolved stuff. Last year for several months I woke earlier and earlier until I got no more sleep from about 2.00am. Now, once again, I’ve become increasingly restless: last night I woke at 1.51 (digital clocks!). And the problem? I feel so alone; so dreadfully alone.
What can I do?
Today I picked up Henri Nouwen’s book, ‘Beloved’. He says that there is a fact – we are alone. We can respond either by feeling lonely or by embracing the solitude.
Jesus embraced solitude. And He was equipped to do so because His Father had told Him – and He had heard – that He was the beloved.
I know the theory, and could quote with my lips how Scripture tells us (me) over and over again that we are beloved by God. But how can I feel it in my heart? HOW? There is no switch to switch so that I feel as loved as God says I am.
This morning I’ve looked more carefully at Jesus. I’ve been intrigued that He wasn’t told only once that He was loved by His Father. We know about His baptism at the start of His ministry. But it happened twice more: I wonder why? Could it be that Jesus needed to hear again the voice from the cloud? At the transfiguration (He’d been talking about painful stuff), and yet again when His heart was ‘deeply troubled…’ (to use Jesus’ own words – oh, I can relate to John 12:27!).
Do I hanker after a voice from heaven telling me that I am His beloved? Do I imagine that that would make it easier to hear Him?
Nouwen suggests that we spend too much time trying to do things to persuade ourselves that we are loveable. He reckons that we thereby miss the solitude.
By contrast Jesus, by resisting His temptation, resisted making Himself look clever (turning stones into bread), or dramatic (having angels catch Him if He jumped off a tower), or as if He possessed all the land. Instead, He stayed quietly knowing Who He was: the beloved.
Now here’s the rub for me.
Given that I haven’t (yet) heard God’s voice in my sleepless nights, could I instead ponder how Jesus used to get up at night to pray; to commune with the One Who calls Him His beloved? We’re not told that He felt lonely. I guess that He went deliberately, to embrace the solitude. Hence He could say “I am in the Father and He is in Me.” He knew – because of His silent times between Father and Son.
SO... could I follow Him – if I can’t actually do it myself, then follow Him in my mind by reflecting on His example?
Well I won’t make it sound easy. After all, Jesus had to climb a mountain for His night-prayers. I reckon I know that feeling…