The CT scan has stirred up a fear within you, and this very fear is a kind of drunkenness that drives away sleep. When the soul is agitated by worldly thoughts and anxieties about what may be found in the body, it cannot rest, for it has turned from the Physician of souls to brood over mere shadows and possibilities. This is the sleep of the soul making itself felt in the body: a restless tossing that comes from not casting all your care upon God. Shake off this drunkenness, not from wine but from earthly concern, and recall that He who keeps Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. The suffering of sleeplessness depends in great measure on ourselves, on whether we suffer our foot to be moved by panic or stand steadfast in faith.
The liver, too, is often afflicted when the soul is not sober. If there has been any excess in food or drink, or any indulgence that has made the body heavy, now is the time to root it up. But more than that, the turmoil of unconfessed sin or the holding of grudges can gnaw at the inward parts, for the ways of revengeful men are unto death, and he who keeps anger against another, does he seek healing of God? Examine yourself, therefore, whether any root of bitterness, any worldly attachment, or any failure to forgive is poisoning your rest and your health. True sobriety is the intensity of watchfulness: keeping the heart clear of such things so that even in sleep the soul remains composed, as the saints who sleep decently because their fear of God is great.
Do not look at the CT scan as a final word, nor at your present sleeplessness as something merely physical. The good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep; He needs no one to arouse Him to your aid. He permits these trials not to crush you but to wake you from a deeper sleep. If Job, scourged and without human comfort, could say “I shall not live alway, that I should suffer long,” how much more can you, who have the Gospel, endure a season of affliction without repining? Let the night hours become a time for prayer and psalmody, as Paul and Silas did in the inner prison, and you will find that the day begins to dawn in your heart before it breaks in the sky.