The Stories Jenny Held (6)
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Jenny
One of the first nights I slept with Sarah, as I was getting used to her snuggling deep under the covers and smooshing me down in the crook of her elbow, she kept tossing and turning. I wondered what was wrong with her. She whispered to me, "I'm scared, Jenny."
Of course I whispered back, "What are you scared of?"
"The dark. I'm scared to be here in the dark, and I'm thirsty and want to get water from the kitchen, but then I have to go downstairs, and it's dark there too!" Sarah replied.
"What's scary downstairs...besides the dark?" I asked, curiously.
"There are cockroaches and they scuttle and if I flip the light on you can see these dark bugs scrambling for the corners. It's so gross!! Sometimes they fly and then I panic! Once there was a snake that got in and I'm terrified of snakes! Sometimes there are bad guys who break in! I don't ever want to be downstairs alone, in the dark and run into a bad guy!" she explained.
I could understand her fear! It did sound terribly frightening to have to go downstairs in the night. But she wanted to get cold water from the fridge! She was so scared to go, so we made a plan together. I told her that if she went really fast - as fast as her legs could carry her - and she put on every light as she went downstairs, then all the roaches and any bad guys would have enough warning to skedaddle. She left me in bed to wait for her return.
I heard the clunking of her racing down the steps. I heard her bolt upstairs only a minute later. Success. She had got her water. She had put on and off the lights. She had made it downstairs and up and hadn't met one bad guy or one roach. But when she hopped back into bed her heart was racing. I could tell she was still pretty scared.
"I'll hug you," I whispered. And Sarah said, "Thanks, but that isn't enough. I need God to help me."
And I wondered who this 'God' person was she was referring to.
Sarah
People sometimes ask me how it is that I know the Bible so well. And there are many different ways I answer this. But as I think back over my life, I remember some of my earliest interactions with Scripture.
If I were asked in this moment how I know the Bible so well, I think I'd answer: "I have been that desperate in my life, that I had nowhere to turn but to this ancient book that I knew to be God's words to me."
And that is where I began as a 7 year-old, one night when I couldn't sleep because I was trapped in my imagination-fears. I was so scared of the dark - as if the darkness had some innate power, as if it could engulf me, as if I were its prisoner. It wasn't merely the dark that scared me (though that alone would be enough!) - I hated bugs and critters and my heart would pound if I was anywhere near a cockroach. Partly it was that you never knew if they were the flying kind or not, and they could surprise you by suddenly spreading wings and launching haphazardly right towards your face. EEEEeeeewww yuck. No thanks!!
I don't remember when we experienced the first break-in, but I knew they happened on occasion, and I was also terrified of 'bad men' who might be lurking in the shadows in the middle of the night. Having a home invasion, though unpleasant, wasn't always so bad as long as you never saw the guys or caught them in the act. That was the thing to be most feared because you never knew what might come of you if you encountered a bad guy breaking in at night.
One of those nights - those terrifying 'I can't sleep because the dark scares me and I don't know what to do!' kind of nights - I hugged Jenny and told her how scared I was. And I had recently accomplished that great fete of learning how to read, and even had a children's Bible. I had gone to Good News Club at school and I think I had learned some verses to win the Bible. As I hugged Jenny, I thought, "God's words are in that book. I think I'll pick it up and see if there's anything He tells me that will help me to go to sleep."
Now, where would a 7 year-old begin to find something of comfort in the middle of the night? I instinctively opened in the middle and saw it was the book of Psalms. I knew Psalm 23, and since I knew that I wasn't interested in reading it again. I wanted something else. So I thought, "I know, I'll begin at the beginning of Psalms. If 23 is a good one, who knows what the book starts out like!"
So I read over Psalm 1. "Hmm, that was okay I guess. Maybe Psalm 2 is better."
Psalm 2 starts out: "Why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain?"
I stopped there and thought, "I don't know where this is going or what this means, but it isn't very comforting right now." And I skipped Psalm 2.
Then I got to Psalm 3. It started off with more about enemies. I didn't quite know what to make of that. But I kept reading.
And then I got to verse 5:
"I lie down and sleep and all night long, the Lord protects me."
I was hooked.
It worked!! The Bible really did have God's words for me - to me - in that moment, in my need, right there in black and white God gave me a prayer. It was so short - one line and I didn't decide to memorize it, it just soaked into me and I repeated it over and over until I fell asleep.
When I awoke the next morning I still had it going around in my head. I was relieved - God had let me sleep - all through the night, and I had been protected.
"Jenny, sometimes I need a hug from you, but I think I will always need my best friend, God to hug me too," I said.
And I felt Jenny agree with me. Surely she was a gift from God. I thanked God for Jenny. I thanked God for my Good News Bible.
It was good news for me that night.
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