If I Shoud Die Before I Wake

I remember the many times I felt You there when I was a child. In fact, I never doubted that You were paying particular attention to what I was doing. I heard the stories of You talking to Samuel as a boy, calling to him as he lay in bed, and I would listen for your voice, afraid of missing your call when it came. You were there. I knew it, so I was listening.

In my childish understanding of atonement, at night I confessed each sin I'd committed during my day.  I had to confess, so You would take my soul to heaven, “if I should die before I wake,” which seemed a likely end to my night, since I was told to pray about it every night:

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.
God bless Mommy, and Daddy, and, ...

But then came the mandatory part of my prayer: Confession.
That listing of all the sins I'd committed which would cause me to burn in hell for an unfathomable eternity. Unless I confessed them & asked to be forgiven before I died.

In 3rd grade, I remember confessing that I smoked candy cigarettes with my friend Georgia (well we tried, anyway, lighting the ends till they smoldered, and holding them like movie stars).  In 5th or 6th grade, I confessed to You about showing a boy my underwear. Other than those 2 great transgressions, I only remember in general... things like lying, fighting with my sisters, disobeying, saying forbidden words, like “butt,”  “stupid,” or “poop.” 

I often wondered what would happen if a person, if I, tried to live a good life, confessed my sins nightly , tried to follow your rules, then died suddenly without confessing my very last sins.  Like, what if I was crossing the street against the “do not cross” sign, (breaking the law), and got hit by a car.  Would that last sin, un-confessed, send me to eternal damnation?

Silly, right! I know. Sorry.  But what if my last word was a curse word, or if I had just shoplifted a piece of bubble gum moments before my death? Wouldn’t confession be required in order to clear the debris, all those sins, barring my way to You, God? So without that last clearing of my soul, would I be separated from You forever? It was heavy thought to carry into adulthood....

For a long time after I met You as a young adult, I resented those nightly confessions. I mean really;  Saying “poop” behind my mother’s back would send me to hell?!!! And, how I'd agonized over that underwear incident, asking for forgiveness over and over.... Why didn’t they talk up that Grace stuff You gave to me as much as they did the scary bits?

As an adult, I came to believe that failing to confess each sin wouldn’t send me to hell, or even separate me from You, but defending my selfish, wrong, or hurtful actions using self-righteousness and self-serving excuses would keep me from the the full life, and the fullest eternal life, which You have called me to, and promised to me.  

Looking back now however, my hellish misunderstanding notwithstanding, I believe my nightly confessions became a great blessing in my life;  What a wonderful habit to develop: In conversation with You, I recount my day, review my thoughts & deeds, and rate my actions against a much grander scale than the one that I was born with.

My human scale teaches me to view my behavior, even my very worst behavior, in the best possible light, protecting me from blame and my conscience from blemish. Genius really; It allows me to feel guiltless, or even justified, when I can't admit to being guilty or in the wrong. It's a downward sliding scale using fuzzy math.  Using this curve, I take a bushel of rotten apples, find the least-rotten one, then compare it to all the other apples. It sounds like this:

“I was bad, but the other person was worse.”
"She hit me first."
“He got what he deserved.”
"I only cheated a little.”
“I lied, but no one was hurt by it.”
“Everyone does it.”

Using this scale, “good enough” becomes the high-bar, just above, "could be worse," and "doesn't really matter." But your divine scale, your measurement of my actions is curved in another direction. It doesn't compare me to the next-worst or next-best person, an in-vain exercise of vanity, nor does it compare me to You, to Jesus, to all the saints, or even my sister, against all-of-whom I will surely fall short.  Your scale compares me to my own very best potential. 

Your scale holds me up against the lovely person that I could become.  Someone I've heard about, dreamed about, and who already feels familiar.  Night after night, You introduce her to me, drawing us closer together through honest reflection and soul-clearing confession, raising me up to kinder, more loving, far-greater actions than my own nature would require.  That’s the scale that I want to aspire to ascend.

Then, at the end of the day, at the end of all my days, nothing will prevent me from hearing your voice calling me to You.

Amen