The Sweatshirt on the Pillow

For the grown-up, first, and this part is not read aloud. Use only the facts you know tonight. Do not add a return day or say that everything will be fine if you cannot know that. The sweatshirt may help your child feel close to the parent who is away, but it is not proof of safety and it is not a promise. If your child asks a question you cannot answer, “I do not know yet, but I am here with you” is a loving answer. Read slowly. Stop whenever your child has had enough.

The room is dark except for a sleeve arranged where an arm would normally be.

Noah put the sweatshirt on his pillow by himself. It is much too big for him. One sleeve falls over the edge of the bed. The other curls near his cheek.

It belongs to his parent, who is away tonight.

Noah knows the sweatshirt is not his parent. Cloth cannot talk. A pocket cannot listen. A sleeve cannot reach around him. Still, it is soft, it smells familiar, and he wants it near.

He has asked when his parent will come home. The grown-ups do not have a day they can give him. They do not make one up.

That can feel hard. A child likes a square on a calendar. A child likes to count sleeps. Tonight there is no number to count.

So Noah asks a different question.

“Can God be beside my pillow and beside my parent too?”

Yes.

God does not have to leave Noah to go to his parent. He does not have to leave the parent to come to Noah. God is not too small for two places.

The sweatshirt cannot cross the distance. God's hand can reach both places tonight.

The God who is already there

Psalm 139 is a song from the Bible. In it, David asks where he could go away from God's Spirit. He thinks of the sky. He thinks of the far side of the sea. Then he gives this answer:

“Even there Your hand shall lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.”Psalm 139:10

Even there.

“There” can be a place Noah has seen. It can be a place he has not seen. It can be nearby or far away. Noah does not need to know the name of the building, the road, or the room for God to know it.

God is already there.

And you are not sending your child into that room on their own tonight. Psalm 139:10 says that even there His hand will lead and His right hand will hold, and the Spirit is the one who makes that true in a room you cannot sit in all night.

“Here” is Noah's bedroom. Here is the pillow. Here is the long sleeve. Here is the grown-up sitting close enough to hear his questions.

God is here too.

And you have not been left to cover both places by yourself. Scripture puts God at the far side of the sea and in this bedroom in the same breath, and the Spirit is the one who carries a small verse into a house that is one person short.

This does not tell Noah when the door will open. The verse does not give him a date. It does not say nothing difficult can happen. It says something strong and true without guessing: God's hand can lead and hold in a place Noah cannot see.

Noah is allowed to miss his parent. Missing someone is not bad behavior. It is not a lack of faith. It is love noticing an empty place.

And you were never asked to talk a child out of missing somebody. His word never once calls grief a fault, and the Spirit is the one who sits with a small person in it rather than hurrying them through it.

He is also allowed to keep the lamp on. He may cry. He may talk. He may decide the sweatshirt should go on the chair instead. None of those choices makes God step away.

God's presence is not a prize for the child who stays quiet. It is not earned by falling asleep quickly.

And you have nothing to earn here, and neither has your child. Scripture says He is a very present help, and present is what He is rather than what He is persuaded into, and the Spirit is the one who makes that steady on a night when nobody sleeps well. God is present because He is God.