I like to recall the instance of the little girl who had to go to the hospital for a very serious operation. When they brought her to the operating table, the surgeon said to her,

“Dear, before we can make you well, we must first put you to sleep.”

“Oh, then,” she replied, “if you are going to put me to sleep, I must say my prayers.”

She got down on her knees by the operating table and prayed a simple little prayer. When the little girl had finished, there were tears in the eyes of those looking on. The surgeon later said,

“I prayed that night for the first time in thirty years.”

There is a story of another little girl who had finished her evening prayers and who then kept kneeling at her bedside. Her mother, waiting nearby, asked her why she did not get into bed.

“I was just waiting,” she said, “to see if God had anything to say to me.”

How often God does have something to say to us at bedtime, if we will but listen!

By James R. Webb, These Times, July 1966. With permission from Dale E. Galusha Pacific Press Ministries dalgal@pacificpress.com