The Holy Spirit Resides in My Mattress
Post Author: Patricia Watson
The Holy Spirit resides in my mattress … I’m pretty sure. The first time I noticed this was when I was in college, though I didn’t call it the Holy Spirit then. I would go to bed after struggling with a paper or project and would wake up with the perfect thing to fit in the project or the perfect connection in the paper. It wasn’t just an idea … it was like the whole paper was written in my head while I slept.
This tradition continued when I went to seminary and started serving three small rural churches in southern Indiana. I would struggle with a sermon or, even worse, have NO IDEA what I was going to preach on, and so I would go to sleep, and wake up with the entire sermon in my head. All I had to do was sit and write it.
It wasn’t that I hadn’t done the work beforehand. I went to a Presbyterian seminary and was schooled in how to do exegesis. I took Greek, Hebrew, Old Testament and New Testament Exegesis, and basic preaching. I knew how to do the outline, how to make the connections, to check commentaries, to read in other translations, to check the context, to talk with other pastors in my lectionary group, and to journal my own thoughts during the week before I get to that point. I did all of these things … but I believe it is the Holy Spirit residing in my mattress that does the real work.
At first my family didn’t understand how this worked. My immediate family came down to celebrate my first Christmas as a pastor with me. (I am one of 8 children, and everyone came except one sister and her husband … it was a full house!) About mid-afternoon on Christmas Eve I still had not finished my sermon and was busy preparing dinner. My family freaked out, “Tricia, don’t you need to go to your office (in the next room) and write your sermon?” “No,” I’d reply, “I’ll go take a nap in a little while, and it will be fine.”
They didn’t get it, and as the day went on it got more urgent for them. So, finally, I went and spent some time in my office just to appease them. I fiddled around on the computer for a while, tried to write something; I got nowhere. I decided to take a nap. I lay down on my bed for only about 20 minutes, then got up, ran up the stairs and into my office where I sat and wrote my entire sermon. They never doubted me again, and now it has become the big family joke.
I asked my husband once if he minded having someone else in our bed with us, someone that wakes me up at night (especially on Saturdays) and pokes at me until I have to turn the light on and write down whatever it is that’s in my head. He said, “No. I figure we have a queen size bed, and it’s big enough for the three of us.”
Our mattress is old. We inherited it from my in-laws, and it really needs to be replaced. Sometimes I can feel the springs, and sometimes it hurts my back. But I’m afraid that the Holy Spirit likes this particular mattress for some reason; will she follow me to the next one? So for now, I simply buy a new mattress pad to put on top and rest in the knowledge that she is there, helping me share God’s Word with those around me.
Rev. Patricia Watson serves as pastor of Salem United Methodist Church in Keedysville, Maryland. She received her MDiv from Louisville Presbyterian Theological Seminary. She has 2 cats, Calvin and Wesley, and has been married to her husband Dwight for almost 3 years.
Image by: Silvie Tittel
Used with permission
https://www.flickr.com/photos/97702127@N00/15700350589/
I was just tagged in a comment about this on facebook, along with six of my seminary classmates. Only two of us fit your age cut-off. Kinda ironic–we find all kinds of walls to erect between us as we seek to fulfill the ministry of reconciliation. Peace, Suz
I, too, am glad to discover others who have this experience. The Holy Spirit also comes to me when I’m in my hammock! 🙂
I think it has to do with letting my brain deflate a little which allows room for the Holy Spirit to fly around in there a little (or a lot).
Ever since my children came along I find my best time in when I take a bath, late at night, with the door locked….aside from waking up in the middle of the night I get inspiration from the quiet, the warmth of the water and pruney skin!
I thought that I was the only one! I am forever waking up in the middle of the night with a sudden way to write the sermon or finish the paper!
I loved your article! Thank-you! For over a couple of decades I thought I was alone in this mode of sermon writing!!! All week, or all during our lives, we prepare for the sermons we preach…but the words in written form, come when “She Comes Flying On The Breeze!” Spirit-that is. Holy-that is. It’s the *PING!!!-Sit-up-straight-in-the-middle- of-the-night-AHA!!!-school-of-homiletics!* Ruah is Her name. Mattresses are Her fame!
I think the Holy Spirit comes to the mattress because she knows that’s where I’ll be….I don’t iron! 😉
The Holy Spirit only visited me a few times in my mattress. Usually she resides in my ironing board. Standing there, ironing the clothes, I get the holy insight and inspiration.
Thanks, Tricia, for the enjoyable article. I did take a nap once and woke up with a completely different, and much better, sermon illustration than I had when I went to sleep. A vast majority of the time, though, I sit down and force myself to write a sermon in my office early in the week. I love that the Spirit can show up anywhere and anytime– beds, offices, Tuesdays, Saturdays, whenever!!
I want to know where your in-laws got that mattress! I could use a little naptime inspiration sometimes 🙂
My family too was originally alarmed, and now just shake their heads, at how the Holy Spirit works when it comes to the sermon. For me, it will be the mattress, or the shower.
I am so glad I’m not the only one with the spirit in the mattress! And maybe in my couch cushions too–a little nap there seems to do the trick a lot of the time as well. But it does freak out my friends that the Spirit waits so long to tell me whatever it is she says! 🙂