What We Can Learn From a Childhood Prayer

The prayer that I am going to share with you is one that children have been taught to say before sleep for generations.

Importantly, there are deep meanings in these ritual words that should be pondered.

Although a short, simple prayer, it speaks to lessons and an understanding about life and relationship with a higher source.

This prayer was written over three hundred years ago and has endured the test of time.

So today, let us ponder and consider the deeper meaning of these words and what they teach about life and how they help you go to sleep in faith and with confidence.

Consider how this prayer with the faith and affirmation it provides, can help you surrender to sleep with assurance that you are safely held in the arms of love.

You have probably guessed by now what prayer I am talking about. It goes like this…

Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my Soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my Soul to take.

Meaning of the Childhood Prayer

Now I lay me down to sleep.

Now is the time to transition to sleep. It is the intention to leave the day behind and enter into the peace and the blessing of sleep. Sleep is a time of rest and restoration for you.

In sleep the body heals, emotions are processed and the mind reinterprets and gives insight through the process of dreams. It is a very valuable and potent time in which your conscious mind rests and re-evaluates the experiences of the day from a very different perspective.

The process of sleep and the dreams that come are a very important part of your human experience. Although well studied, the ultimate purpose of sleep and all of the levels on which it takes place is not fully understood.

What we do know is that sleep is essential for good physical health, emotional health and mental health. Sleep is an integral part of your life experience and so to enter into the state of being that is sleep, is important. To use prayer as a transition from waking to sleep is a way to calm your mind and prepare for the part of living that is sleep.

I pray the Lord my Soul to keep.

This phrase is a very simple affirmation that you have a Soul and you are, as you enter from conscious (waking) thought into sleep, reminded that your Soul is your link with the Divine and in God’s keeping.

Although you may not think much about your Soul, it is an integral and essential part of your being. This most important part of you, the eternal spark of you, is placed in the safety and love of God’s keeping.

If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my Soul to take.

This phrase is a reminder and acknowledgement that you are an eternal being and that your Soul is the eternal part of you.

You are more than just a physical body, a mind and a personality; you are a miracle. This understanding of the nature of life and death and the reality of eternity is a comfort as you are surrendering to sleep.

By the words “If I should die before I wake” you are addressing humankind’s deepest fear, the fear of death followed by the faith and reassurance that you are an eternal being when your say “I pray the Lord my Soul to take.” This simple statement helps to release the illusion of death. It speaks to a deep and eternal truth. Life is eternal, you are an eternal being and your Soul forever rests within the love and grace of your Heavenly Father.

The Deeper Meaning of the Prayer

This simple prayer was for many of you, a nighttime ritual of childhood. Rituals can be helpful and comforting in your adult life. Recently I posted a Wisdom Wednesday blog to help people with sleep, in which the ritual of prayer before sleep was a recommended technique.

If you used the “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep” prayer you probably also followed it with a list of those you asked God to bless. This blessing of and praying for others is a powerful affirmation that God is in control of our life. This makes the act of prayer an act of faith.

You may have repeated these words, as taught, without stopping to consider their meaning, their importance of what was being subtly said or affirmed. You may have engaged in this nightly ritual without any consideration of what you were being taught about life, what you were being taught about God, or what you were being taught about your Soul.

Consider the very concept of using prayer as a way of connecting with God before you sleep. Realize that once your conscious efforts of the day are over and you prepare to enter the peaceful healing state of sleep, you can turn everything over to God. Your day is finished, your watch is concluded, you can now surrender control to God. This opportunity to surrender to a Higher Power can be very comforting, allowing you to both relax and release the day.

This process of surrender is a way to let the day be past. This putting that past into the past opens you to the unlimited potential of the next day. It marks the line between what has been, what is now and what is emerging in the future.

Focusing upon your Soul, that Divine spark of your being that is for all eternity One with God can be both reassuring and inspiring.

Then, with the last line “If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my Soul to take” you are stating and affirming that your Soul, that which is eternal in your being, is returned to God when your life has passed. This is true whenever this life is finished. This becomes a simple statement of faith and what is real and true that you know on a very deep and archetypal level.

These simple statements of faith, assurance and surrender offer powerful truths that can be asserted as you transition from waking to sleeping by engaging your relationship to God as we release the reins of the passing day by calmly transitioning from day into night.

In this simple childhood prayer, you have affirmed deep principles and eternal truths that can be a comfort to you.

As you lay down to sleep, you are now free to let your body rest and be restored. There is nothing you need to think about anymore today. You are safe. You have given those in your care over to God with your blessing. You have let the past go with the conclusion of the day.

You can now be at peace. You are embraced and held within the eternal as you let yourself receive the restoration and strength that sleep brings.

You can safely enter from the consciousness of waking, in which you try to be in control of your life, into the state of sleep with its dreams.

The “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep” childhood prayer offers several significant affirmations of truth and faith and provides comfort and reassurance that you are an eternal being for whom life, sleep and even death are simply transitions of consciousness.

This prayer is, although mysterious, an amazing blessing you can celebrate as life, a gift beyond measure, a gift with which you and your loved ones are blessed each day.

Amen

Namaste,

Genevieve

The Blessing of Love on All That You Do!

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