My husband got into a bicycle accident on his ride home from work two years ago. Wet grass caused his front wheel to slip, and he crashed into the handlebars. It broke one of his ribs, which sliced into his spleen, but he didn’t know because he was in shock. He came home with a small head wound, and I fussed at him about a possible concussion. But like a typical Midwestern boy, he replied, “I’m fine,” so I settled for bringing him a bag of frozen peas for his forehead, then I left to pick up some pizza.
When I returned, he was passed out on the floor, and my toddler, Hilde, was sobbing. I got my husband to the hospital, but it was hours before they figured out that his belly was filling up with blood. Our summer plans vanished, and I spent weeks going back and forth from the hospital to our home, where our confused toddler kept asking, “Where is Daddy?”
In between hospital visits and comforting our kids, I received an email confirming that I would be a children’s book author. A year before, I had finally decided to write about Psalm 121, a passage which meant a great deal to me as a child. I wrote a simple story about a boy named Charlie who, for various and relatable reasons, can’t fall asleep. Charlie’s parents comfort him with the truth of God’s omnipresence—that he is everywhere at all times. They read Psalm 121 aloud, finding reassurance in the God who “will neither slumber nor sleep” as he “watches over” his people (v. 4).
At the time, I couldn’t have known how much I would need this story myself. I couldn’t have predicted the night when I first returned home from the hospital, put our daughter to bed, and waited until 1 a.m. for the night nurse to call and tell me whether my husband was still alive.
My young daughter, Hilde, didn’t sleep well during those weeks either. We both tossed and turned, our schedules thrown off and our hearts anxious. The following truths are for your children, but they are also for you, because we never outgrow our need for God at all times—especially at night.
1. God never sleeps.
“Behold, He who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep” (Ps. 121:4, NASB).
I tell my daughter, “Even when everyone else in the house is asleep—me, Daddy, and Richard—God is still awake. You can talk to him. You can know you’re not alone. He doesn’t get tired like we do.”She’s read my book—even keeps it in her bed on the top bunk—and now she wants a Bible there too, like Charlie. She can’t read yet, but she already understands that God’s Word brings comfort, that his truth is her night-light.
We have a picture of Jesus—an artist’s imperfect rendering, anyway—carrying a lamb on his shoulders. It hangs on the wall just above where Hilde places her head on her Winnie-the-Pooh pillow each night. She points to the lamb sometimes and says, “That’s me!”
I want her to know that she is never alone, even in the middle of the night when our old house, built in 1920, is settling with its creaks and moans and when the dark silhouettes of her stuffed animals look like monsters. I want her to know that prayer reaches God at any hour. As David testifies in Psalm 55, “As for me, I call to God, and the Lord saves me. Evening, morning and noon I cry out in distress, and he hears my voice” (vv. 16–17).
2. God carries our burdens.
“Cast your cares on the Lord and he will sustain you” (Ps. 55:22).
Right now, Hilde’s favorite way to pray is listing the things she is thankful for. For example, a recent prayer at dinner included thanking God for butter, trees, barbecue sauce, the Holy Spirit, and houses. But there will come a day, and sooner than I’d like, when she will have more than just thanks to lay at Jesus’ feet. She will have worries, regrets, and shame. She will have fear, confusion, and questions. I want her to know that God is not only always awake but also always willing to listen to whatever is on her heart.
In my book, I write about how Charlie is frustrated that he is supposed to pray to a God he can’t see. His mom responds with understanding, noting that she struggles with the same thing and that her solution is to tell God all about it. She invites Charlie not only to pray but also to pour out his heart before God, questions and all.
When our children realize they can talk to God about anything, they will talk to him about everything. And that’s just what we want. Of course, we’d love it if they would confide all their thoughts and fears in us, but there will be times when they whisper those words to God alone. And we can trust that God knows how to hold our children and their precious hearts.
3. God shows his love through Jesus.
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Rom. 5:8).
The gospel isn’t just for the daytime. For many of us, including our children, nighttime is when our thoughts settle and we ask our biggest questions. We think back over our day, remembering the joys but also the ways we failed.
Even at age three, Hilde has such a tender conscience. While she might zip around all day like a hummingbird from flower to flower, at night she often wants reassurance. Sometimes what our children need most before they can fall asleep is forgiveness. Especially after a hard day of correction and consequences, our children need reminders that they are still loved, that their performance isn’t what determines their value in God’s sight.
It is in these quiet hours, when the sky dims and we put our pajamas on, that we can curl up beside our children—or hug them to our chests—and remind them that God’s love for his children is a “Never Stopping, Never Giving Up, Unbreaking, Always and Forever Love,” as Sally Lloyd-Jones put it in The Jesus Storybook Bible. The gospel is always the right story to tell, especially at bedtime.
4. God’s mercies are new every morning.
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” (Lam. 3:22–23, ESV).
I don’t know how things are at your house, but despite the absolute delight parenting is, my husband and I are bone-tired at the end of each day, often barely making it to bedtime with our patience intact. The idea that there will be a fresh start in the morning—that God’s mercies are new with each sunrise—is incredibly important to our little family.
New mercies definitely speak to us as parents and caregivers, but our children also need them. In fact, my daughter and I have stolen the concept of “fresh starts” to use throughout the day. When things go downhill for whatever reason, after we’ve practiced our deep breathing, I sometimes like to declare a fresh start over our house. We don’t have to wait until morning for mercy, but it really does help us sleep when we know that mercy is on the way.
Another practice I have with my little girl is letting her list some of the things she is looking forward to, come daylight. I might get her started with something like “We can make banana pancakes for breakfast, watch some Bluey, run in the sprinklers, check the garden, and teach Richard how to say new words.”Her body visibly calms down as she remembers that morning will indeed come again, and this often transforms her fear of missing out into joyful anticipation. She takes over with “And we can bake cookies and then play in the front yard, where I am the ambulance and you are the fire truck!”
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It’s been two years since that bike accident, and we’ve moved on and lived through other delights and trials since, but Hilde will still occasionally ask me to tell her the story. I’m not sure how much she remembers, but I know she likes the part where I tell her that the doctors told Daddy not to lift anything but that when he finally came home and saw her, he scooped her right up.
No matter how old we are, falling asleep can take courage. It sometimes requires that we first work through what is keeping us awake, causing anxious thoughts, or disrupting our peace. Our kids need to know that they never have to work through these thoughts alone.
Even when everyone in the house is asleep, God is always awake. Even if they wake up in the dark, the darkness is not dark to him (Ps. 139:12). God is listening. He is able to carry any burden on his strong shoulders. He reminds us of his love for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus. And he can’t wait to give us a fresh start tomorrow morning.
Rachel Joy Welcher is an author and an acquisitions editor at Baker Books. Her children’s book is Charlie Can’t Sleep!: Trusting God When You’re Afraid of the Dark.
