Bedtime

“Goodnight stars, goodnight air, goodnight noises everywhere.”

And with that I closed the book.

“Okay! Time for bed, Hootley and Dootley!”

“Don’t call us that!” said Hendon and Ellis.

“Oh. Sorry, Hoodles and Doodles,” I said.

“Dad!!”

“Time for bed you little weirdos.”

Over the past 11 years, I have had a complicated relationship with those hours between seven and eight (okay, nine) each evening: Bedtime.

Sometimes there are tears. Sometimes there is fussing. Sometimes I don’t end up throwing a fit and our girls go to sleep easily.

But each night for the past eleven years we pray together, read the Bible, sing a worship song, and read a bedtime story. Sometimes we are on the couch. Sometimes we are snuggled in bed. Sometimes Ellis screams at me to skip that scary part. Sometimes Hendon asks too many questions right when I am getting rolling in a story.

Each night when we finish reading, I hum a little ditty and slam the book close.

Sometimes the books end in silly ways. Like the redemption the dog Smelly Bill finds at the hands of Aunt Bleach:

“When they returned, the family were most surprised and pleased to see a fluffy Bill from nose to toes, smelling sweeter than a rose. Aunt Bleach said, ‘I do not like to boast, but I’m the one to thank. The children did not get too close, she absolutely STANK!”

“One more time, Daddy!”

“Nope! Time for bed, Hootling and Delbert!”

Sometimes the stories end poignantly:

“You'll stay with me?' said Harry Potter. ‘Until the very end,' said James.”

“Dad, you’re crying. Why are you crying? Ellis, look! Dad’s crying!”

“I’m not crying! You’re crying! Time for bed, dummies!”

“Dad! We’re not dummies!”

But every night, the stories always end, despite what Frodo tell Sam on the slopes of Mordor:

“‘Don’t the great tales never end?’ asked Sam. 'No, they never end as tales,’ said Frodo. 'But the people in them come, and go when their part’s ended. Our part will end later - or sooner.’”

I can feel it.

I can feel the years zooming by. This chapter of our life which I am calling “Bedtime” is drawing to a close.

Maybe not tomorrow night. Maybe not next year. But it’s coming.

No matter how big a fit I throw. There will be a night when we no longer snuggle into bed. There will be a night when the girls read to themselves. There will be a night when the girls are out in the world living their own stories.

What kinds of stories will they live? What kinds of adventures will they have?

Will they remember the silly little stories I read to them each night? Will that be enough to carry them through whatever pain they might face in this world?

Can I hope against hope that there might have been some power in those stories?

Janner asks a question similar to this in Andrew Peterson’s Wingfeather Saga and he receives this answer: “We all forget from time to time, and so we need one another to tell us our stories. Sometimes a story is the only way back from the darkness.”

What darkness might my daughters face in their lives, I don’t want to imagine. I can only pray that they will see what I see in these silly little stories. That they will see their stories as part of a bigger story that is being written. A Story that, despite the pain, despite the hurt, despite the scary bits, ends with everything being made new. Every tear is wiped from our eyes because this Story ends with the Lamb that was slain! With God making His home among His people.

“And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us, this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at least they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story, which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.”