“Lord, tell me a bedtime story. You know, my favorite one, so I can sleep. The one where you tell me how you’ll never leave me or forsake me. It’s midnight and it’s a dangerous time for me. Negativity and the offenses of the day (or a lifetime) are flooding in. Turn off my racing mind, it’s attacking from all sides. I’m cuddled up in the warmth of the blankets and staring into the dark, ready for my favorite story. Thank you, Lord. That one. The one about how I’ll live forever with you in Paradise. It will give me sweet dreams.
“Lord don’t go … tell me one more, please? Tell me the ‘Old, Old, Story,’ so I can sleep. You know the one that replaces the stories in my head that have sad endings. Change the story endings of my life, my family’s life, my friends and the world. Tell me that old, old, story – the one about your love. I do adore that story so, even though I’ve heard it a million times. It never gets old, I could hear it over and over, and it has such a happy ending.
“One more story, Lord. I’m not sleepy yet, and I love the sound of your voice. Remember the one about your peace that passes all understanding? It captivates me. Even happy stories in this life are scary for me, how I’m afraid they might be taken away. Life’s joys can be so fleeting and you know how I am – I cling to them. The one that tells me that nothing can separate me from your love – that it can never be taken away. Lord, tell me that story again?
“No, not yet! Just one more story Lord, please? Then I promise I will go to sleep. Tell me the story, the one filled with your truths and full of mystery. The one that sets me free. Tell me the story again when I first believed. How you died and rose again for me. How you live inside me and how I’m never on my own. It is such an exciting story – it’s a thriller with a surprise ending.
“And one last story, Lord. The ‘Once upon a time, when I was born,’ one. And then I promise, promise, I’ll go to sleep. Tell me the love story of your pride and joy in me, that I belong to you, that I am your child. How you knit me together in my mother’s womb and how you knew me before the foundation of the world. Tell me again of our great adventure together – of how you hide me in the cleft of the rock and cover me with your hands. And how you have made sure, that goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. I can never get enough of this story about our life together.
“Lord, I’m sleepy now; but how about just one more? Please? Tell me one more story, Lord. Just, one, more … ”
All my love to my three-year-old granddaughter Lucy Thomas,
and her bedtime antics; and for being the inspiration for this story.