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3:00 AM Marginalia: 3:00 AM Is Not My Enemy | Theology of Everyday Life

3:00 AM Marginalia: 3:00 AM Is Not My Enemy | Theology of Everyday Life

3:00 AM Marginalia: 3:00 AM Is Not My Enemy

The clock says 3:00 a.m. I want to smash it. But it’s just doing its job.

Eternal First Words | December 2025

Digital clock glowing 3:00 AM in a dark room, time indifferent to exhaustion

Three a.m. Wide awake. The week has been brutal—short nights bleeding into each other—and I was sure tonight would turn the corner. I read Scripture. Meditated. Played Bible verses designed for sleep. Listened to calm recitations until my ears hurt. Nothing. Still here, eyes open, body wired, mind circling the same drain: Why won’t it let me rest?

Tomorrow I’ll pay. I know the script. Cranky from the first alarm. Petty over nothing—someone breathing too loud, a text taking too long to answer. Then the guilt spiral: hating myself for snapping, which makes me snap more. The version of me I despise most is already loading. And I point the finger at 3:00 a.m. like it planned this. Like it chose to wake me, sabotage me, turn me into this small, sharp person.

But what has 3:00 a.m. actually done? It’s a number on a clock. It arrives because seconds turn into minutes, not because it hates me. It doesn’t plot. It doesn’t withhold sleep. It’s just there—part of the fabric of time God holds out, minute by minute, none of it promised, all of it grace whether I’m grateful or furious.

Time doesn’t owe me rest.
It owes me nothing.
Yet here it is, still given.

I can name that. I can even say I don’t hate the hour anymore—3:00, 3:01, 3:02, every tick forward is unearned gift. Fine. Intellectually true. But the body doesn’t care about theology at this hour. The irritation stays lodged. The pettiness is still scheduled for daylight. Knowing time is grace doesn’t dissolve the ache or the dread. It just sits alongside them, quieter than the resentment but not louder.

So I sit with both. No victory lap. No sudden peace. The clock keeps moving. Tomorrow I’ll probably curse 3 a.m. again when the crank hits. But tonight, at least, I’m not pretending the enemy is the time itself. It’s not. It’s just time. And I’m still in it.

That’s enough. For now. The pettiness waits for morning.

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