If I should die before I wake

When I was a child and even well into my teen years, a framed prayer hung on my bedroom wall:

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.

During the day it just hung there in its 8-1/2 by 11-inch frame, but at night it glowed in the dark, complete with a starry sky backdrop. I saw it from my bed every night and prayed it faithfully for years.

When I grew older, our culture’s Deciders (I’m thinking Dr. Benjamin Spock, not President George W. Bush) decided that it was better to give children warm, fuzzy, secure feelings rather than scaring them out of their wits. It became a bad thing to remind anyone, but especially children, that human life comes to an end and that we all die. Nowadays, there is a more sanitized, acceptable version of my childhood prayer:

Now I lay me down to sleep;
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
Angels guard me through the night,
And wake me with the morning’s light.

As long as we keep waking up with the morning’s light, no one ever need worry his or her pretty little head about the elephant in the room -- our mortality.

Last week, our neighbor Joanne, who had been married to her husband Bob for 50 years, died during a very complicated experimental heart surgery. After several hours, her calcium-surrounded heart stopped and the medical team could not restart it. She knew beforehand that the outcome of the surgery was iffy. She had spent the last month preparing and freezing enough meals to last Bob for a couple of months.

When her son Erik sent around an email to tell her friends that “her heart stopped and she is bound for glory,” he included a music clip containing a simple song that I found incredibly moving and incredibly comforting.

Some of my readers are believers but I realize that many of you are not. Some of you are openly hostile to anything having to do with the Christian faith. That is certainly your right. But I dare you to listen to this simple song and not be affected. If nothing else, listen to it for Joanne:

Call On Jesus (3:45)

Perhaps I am naive. I pray that I stay that way until I draw my last breath.

If I should die before I wake, I can’t think of a better final post.