My Prayer Life - Part 1 - "Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep"

The following is a lengthy account of my most memorable, life-changing prayers, from the 1930s to the 1970s. I will publish it in several parts.

Part 1:

My first recollection of learning to pray was when I was a very small child. When my mother put me to bed she had me kneel and taught me to say, "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."
                                                                                     

                                              

Gertie - age 4 - 1928

     

I have mixed emotions about this prayer. It taught me to pray---it placed in my heart and mind the knowledge that we are in God's hands for keeping---but it gave me a disturbed feeling that I carried through my teen years. I was afraid to go to sleep at night without first asking my heavenly Father to watch over me and keep me through the night. 

                     

Gertie - age 5 - about 1929

As I grew older I branched out on this simple prayer and told God many things and asked many things before I closed my eyes in sleep--feeling much relieved and secure after having talked with the Lord. I remember in those "pillow prayers," (as I soon gave up the kneeling by my bed except for special prayers when I felt the Lord so close), I remember praying, asking God to guide me to the right person for my husband. I said, "Lord, help me to know the one you have for me and then help us to have a happy home." That must have been when I was about 15 years old because by the time I was 16 the Lord had answered that prayer. One Sunday morning as I was singing in the choir I noticed this dark, handsome stranger on the back seat. My heart did a little extra beat, but I didn't think too much about it. I kept seeing him there for several Sundays, but I had never mentioned him to anyone. I had not even asked who he was. One night as I was with another boy whom I had been dating a lot, he asked me if I would "go steady" with him. Immediately this stranger came into my mind and I knew if I ever met him and he asked me to go with him I could not refuse, so I told my friend that I was not ready to go steady. "Is there someone else?" he asked. And I truthfully said, "No."

Age 15 - 1939

The next Sunday as I saw him come in dressed in a new tailor made suit, I could wait no longer. I punched the girl next to me and said, "Who is that new boy on the back seat?" She said, "He is my cousin and he wants to meet you." Oh--my heart just sang as we sang that day. After church we bashfully were introduced and that afternoon he asked me to go for a ride with him and some other young people. I knew from the first meeting we both knew that we had found our future, even though it was several years before we became serious enough to make plans. And only then, when the war came in 1941, Dec. 7th, we heard the news on the car radio, and he began to sing "Good-bye Little Darling, I'm Leaving...."

Sure enough, his was the first number drawn for the draft and he was off. My memory is very clear on my prayer life again as I feared now to go to sleep without asking God to keep not only me, but most of all Curtis and Doug, my brother. Only as I prayed and then in my simple faith I left them in God's care for a whole 24 hours and didn't worry.

My dear Curtis - 1942-1945

God answered those prayers and brought back to my parents their son and future son-in-law. We had to wait three whole days before we could be married to live happily ever after.

August 30, 1945

To read a poem I wrote to Curtis before he left for the war click here.
Next entry of my prayer journey - "Praying with Mama"