Will Sleeping with a Bible Under Your Pillow Lead to Insanity?

Daily writing prompt

Describe an item you were incredibly attached to as a youth. What became of it?

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As an abandoned child living in the home of an aunt who was a stranger to me, I had to find comfort in the familiar. That was the Bible I had received from school, the little red one with the New Testament and Psalms and Proverbs. I had been baptized at nine years old and almost immediately changed homes again. So, the Bible and the idea that I had a Father in Heaven who loved me and would not abandon me and a Brother who died for me (that’s how I saw Jesus then) was something I clung to.

My sister and I were in a third different home, with a third different aunt in four years, when I started the practice of sleeping with the Bible under my pillow. My aunt discovered what I was doing one day and ordered me to stop the practice. She said that it would drive me crazy. Because we didn’t go to church while in her home, I wasn’t sure she understood what the Bible meant to me. But I did know that she was a strict disciplinarian with a switch or a belt, so I stopped. It was such a loss, but as children tend to do, I survived it.

Many years later, that same aunt came to hear me give my pilot sermon as a newly licensed minister. She told me afterward, with humor, that it seemed that sleeping with the Bible under my pillow hadn’t driven me crazy; it had made me a preacher!. She was proud of me, and I was glad that she liked the sermon.

The Bible today is still my most valuable asset. I read it daily, and I find answers to difficulties there and the familiarity of the words is a balm to my soul in these divisive days. I remember that this world is only a temporary place of residence, but Jesus is my refuge and fortress. I would go crazy if I didn’t believe that God the Father is in control and that there is a place for me in the New Jerusalem. 

Let children have the things in their lives that help them cope with changes that they can’t understand. Don’t take away their blankets and Pooh bears until they are ready to let them go. You do more damage to their psyche than any pacifier or fuzzy rabbit could ever do. I still sometimes need a hug from my Pooh bear given to me when I retired from the telephone company. We all have to find ways to patiently endure this journey.