Genesis 28: 11 "...Jacob found a stone for a pillow and lay down to sleep..."
Jacob is traveling to Paddan-aram to find a wife. Along the way he stops to sleep. He finds a stone for a pillow and drifts off to sleep. While he is sleeping he dreams of a stairway leading him to heaven where God tells him that he will bless and protect him. Jacob wakes up and uses his stone pillow to create an altar for God right there at a place he names "Bethel" meaning the house of God.
I find it odd that this story includes this little detail about a stone pillow. And why did Jacob use a stone for a pillow? It seems to me sleeping flat on the dirt would be more comfortable than a stone for a pillow! Yet this story includes the stone pillow. And while on this hard pillow Jacob hears from God and then he uses this pillow to build an altar for God. Sometimes all we have in life is a stone pillow. But God has this amazing way of taking the mundane, simple, and lowly things to do great things. September has been one big stone pillow for me. Yet on this 30th day of September I am seeing him more clearly and feeling his love more deeply than I have in some time.
Dear Jesus, stone pillows suck, but thank you for them. Help me to sleep peacefully tonight. Amen.
