Sleep

from Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions:

Blessed Creator, Thou hast promised your beloved sleep; Give me restoring rest needful of tomorrow's toil. If dreams be mine, let them not be tinged with evil. Let your Spirit make my time of repose a blessed temple of his holy presence. May my frequent lying down make me familiar with death, the bed I approach remind me of the grave, and the eyes I now close picture to me their final closing. Keep me always ready, waiting for admittance to your presence. Weaken my attachment to earthly things. May I hold life loosely in my hand, knowing that I receive it on condition of its surrender; as pain and suffering betoken transitory health, may I shrink from a death that introduces me to the freshness of eternal youth. I retire this night in full assurance of one day waking with you. All glory for this precious hope, for the gospel of grace, for your unspeakable gift of Jesus, for the fellowship of the Trinity. Withhold not your mercies in the night season; your hand never wearies, your power needs no rest, your eye never sleeps.

Help me when I helpless lie, when my conscience accuses me of sin, when my mind is harassed by foreboding thoughts, and when my eyes are held awake by personal anxieties.

Show yourself to me as the God of all grace, love and power; you have a balm for every wound, a solace for all anguish, a remedy for every pain, and a peace for every disquietude. Permit me to commit myself to you, awake or asleep. Amen.