“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord, my soul to keep.
And if I should die, before I awake,
This I ask, for Jesus sake …”
This is a short prayer that sometimes plays in my head as it rests on my pillow at the end of the day.
I can close my eyes and be in my young childhood bedroom, with my mom or dad at my bed, praying this simple prayer. I am not sure if it happened every night, or sporadically, or just once, but the memory of it is clear.
Even today, in my forties, I receive a measure of peace simply by thinking it in my head, for it resides, not only in my memory, but in my heart.
The final line, is not the final line.
“This I ask, for Jesus sake …”
was followed by “God bless …” and then I would list people in my life.
Though ever so simple and wrote, this nightly prayer keeps much in order.
- it is a reminder that God is the one we should reach out to at the end of our day.
- it is the submission of our souls to the hand of God.
- it is the acknowledgement that the number of our days is not guaranteed nor know to us.
- it is the delivery of others into the care of God.
Maybe it is the best of prayers for a good night sleep.
itsawonderfilledlife 