A bedtime prayer

When I was a child, my mother would have me kneel by my bed each night and recite this old and commonplace prayer;

Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
 
As a young girl, this did not strike me as particularly ghoulish, but as an adult, it seems horrible!  It is an old rhyme dating from the time when the death of a child was distressingly  commonplace.
 
Bedtime prayers are important for children, a chance for God to become part of a child’s life in a routine way.  However, maybe the prayer should be less about death and more about God’s love and protection.
 
Here is a different prayer, a mash-up of two different nighttime rhymes;
Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John,
Bless the bed I lie upon.
Four corners has my bed,
Four angels ‘round my head.
One to listen, one to pray,
Two to chase bad dreams away.
Thank you, Lord, for I am blessed,
Thank you, Lord.  And now I rest.
 
It is a little longer, but it can be recited responsively, with the parent taking the first line and the child taking the next.  And at least it is less likely to give the parent bad dreams.
 
— Margaret Bivins