"sleeping diagonally"

i appreciate the fact that there are a lot of things about God and being human that are mysterious.

like the latter half of this verse in psalm 139:

"when i awake, i am still with You."

i've been a christian for, like, ten years and i still dont understand why David randomly throws this stray conclusion in among his musings of how numerous and precious God's thoughts are to us.

i do have some ideas though-

the phrase "i am still with" means "again and again, repeatedly: an action, hardly intermitted, is repeatedly begun anew."   like breathing maybe.

lovely, right?  

my awareness of You becomes fresh all over again.

but i just think it's weird that he makes the implications that he does in this verse.  what does sleep or wake have to do with God staying or going?  it still speaks to me though, deeply, as good poetry should- maybe because the implied conclusions of our own thought processes really are this odd.  

the only idea i can picture in my mind is this:

two seconds into your newly acquired consciousness for the day your mind is pummeled by the fact that you've got to be late for something.  Seconds number three to five of your consciousness then is spent in INSTANT PANIC choking down a gasp while reaching for your clock/cell phone to figure out-for-the-love-of-crimini  what time it is.  

dont worry.

its 6 am.

you dont have work till 8.

you were stressed for nothing.

in the summer time the sun comes up really early, remember?

you let out a sigh from the gasp you were holding in and instantly relax your entire being in full body relief.

maybe thats the experience that David was talking about- not in the physical sense so much, but (and here's where the poetry comes in...dont be afraid...poetry is good....gooooood...nothing to be worried about) in the sense that when something slumbering inside you jolts to life in instant panic, it wonders if this whole time it was sleeping alone and what might have happened to it unawares while it was dozing on the job.

and we all know how rational a newly awakened anything is:

"maybe i missed Him...maybe He got tired of waiting and left...Maybe he gave up on me...Maybe i'll never get Him back....Maybe i screwed up my own life by ceasing to be aware of Him for a while and now its all over..."

"maybe" is a cruel word, full of fear.

and in the panic we gasp and reach for the indicator that will tell us if He is still there...His hand, His face perhaps.  and our hand touches something solid and familiar and warm and our body gives itself permission to lay off the adrenaline.

and in David's world, this is an again and again thing- like some people's compulsive habit of checking for their keys to make sure they didnt lock them in the car.  

and every 

every 

every 

single time

i realize You are still there...

i didnt screw up for good...

i didnt lose the one thing i have worth living for in You...

i didnt sleep alone after all.