06/28/21 MY TESTIMONY #1: The CHILDREN’S BEDTIME PRAYER — “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. Amen.”

Years ago in a seminary theology class I was required to come up with a few of my own “catechisms.” The prayer above came to mind. Every time I think of it I’m reminded of a special fall week way back when I was eight and a half years old.

My parents were charter members of a church mission plant; my mother was the church secretary. I guess I had literally been at church “every time the doors were open” (and often when they were not) since nine months before I was born. I had won nearly every prize in sight for perfect Sunday School attendance, Bible verse memorization and so on. But one Sunday, after an otherwise perfectly normal Sunday morning worship service, I felt absolutely terrified. Suddenly it occurred to me that all those memory verses applied to me. And all those “impressive” achievements would not deliver me one inch or one second out of hell.

For the next four nights I tried my very best not to go to sleep. As the little prayer said, I knew exactly where the Lord would take my soul if I died before I awakened. STAY TUNED…