The Mayo Clinic defines “night cramps” as follows:

Night leg cramps are sudden, painful, involuntary contractions of muscles in your leg. In most cases, night leg cramps involve your calf muscles, but muscles in your feet or thighs may cramp as well. The risk of having night leg cramps increases with age.

Last night shortly after 2 a.m. I woke up with cramps in both of my adductor muscle groups (interior thigh). Massage didn’t relieve it so I had to get up and walk up and down the hall for the better part of half an hour. This has happened before and it’s a great way to blow a good night’s sleep!

Mayo says of the cause:

Most of the time, true night leg cramps occur for no known reason, and they’re harmless. However, in rare situations, night leg cramps can be associated with an underlying disorder, such as peripheral artery disease or diabetes.

Great! I have none of those underlying disorders (TBTG!) so these are just harmless (but painful) events. (I tore the left adductor muscle about 25 years ago in a skate-boarding incident; maybe I can blame it on that. Or maybe I can blame it on being overweight now!)

In any event, while I was walking up and down the hall in the darkness of early morning, a snippet of scripture came to mind ….

O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer; by night as well, but I find no rest.

I couldn’t remember the source of this verse, so I looked it up this morning and it turns out to be from Psalm 22. It’s verse 2. The opening line of Psalm 22 is rather more familiar:

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Here we are in the midst of Lent. In just three weeks we will read that Psalm on Good Friday. I wonder if God is trying to tell me something through my nighttime leg cramps. Something more to ponder….