Religious Understanding

Overcoming Trauma

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Bill Samuel's Quakerism site with articles and discussion forums.

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Find out which denomination best agrees with your own faith. My test results indicate that I would feel most comfortable in an Orthodox Quaker group. This is probably because or my belief in pacifism.

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The Healing Hug of Sleep

by Traute Klein, biogardener

What happens when someone dozes off in church? Watch the reactions. Maybe sleep is more healing to a tired soul than a sermon.

Sleeping in Church

How do you react when someone beside you falls asleep in church? If he is a family member, do you try to wake him up? Are you embarrassed? Don't be.

I doze off in church, and not only in church, and I learned not to be embarrassed.

Let me tell you the story of how that happened.

Healing Sleep

In 1983, I suffered a disabling car accident which caused posttraumatic stress disorder. One of the effects was that I was unable to sleep for more than a few minutes at a time. Gradually that time period got longer, but now, more than 20 years later, I am still not able to sleep through the night. The accident also cut me off from work, family, and friends.

Before the accident, I had been teaching a weekly lady's Bible study which had gradually turned into a family Bible study. The accident put an end to that, but two years later, I decided to attend another ladies' Bible study. I attended faithfully every week, but as soon as I was seated comfortably, I would doze off till the end of the meeting.

The teacher felt unhappy that I would sleep through her teaching, but rather than reprimand me, as some ministers would have, she decided to pray about it. She later shared with me that the Lord had told her, "Traute need her sleep more than she needs your teaching."

Those weekly Bible studies contributed more to overcoming the posttraumatic stress disorder than any help which I received from all other sources. I got more than sleep at those there. I got lots of sincere hugs, and I certainly needed those.

Sleeping Quakers

I have never attended a Quaker meeting, in fact, I do not know any Quakers in person, but I know about them from my cyber-friend Bill Samuel. He writes on Quakers, AKA Society of Friends, and his website is linked below. Another cyber-friend, attended only one Quaker meeting, and this is what she told us about it:

During the meeting, there was a quiet time, and according to her, everyone in the room fell asleep except she and her friend, both of them first-time visitors. The purpose of the quiet time was probably to enable two-way communication with God. Maybe the people in the room needed their sleep more than the communication. I know one thing. I might not have felt uncomfortable, especially if I had remembered the time in my life when I needed my sleep more than Bible teaching.