Why I slept on floors as a kid

by Joel Bates

​My quarter-inch-thick, body-length, foam mat barely softened the hard edges of the cold stones beneath me, yet I lay in complete contentedness and drifted off to the music of river water rushing by.  Sometimes, I have wrestled with the curse of first-night-camping-insomnia when one’s body, accustomed to a soft, comfy bed, protests against the hard ground cushioned merely by a flimsy piece of foam for a bed—clearly a joke if you think this will offer much comfort.  The average hiker will need a couple days to succumb readily to sleep—due mostly to acute exhaustion rather than adaptation.  Honestly, though, I’ve suffered very little from this chronic, camping malady, and, thinking back, I see the remedy began in my childhood.  

As a child and even into my youth, though I had a perfectly comfortable bed, I would crawl down off my bunk each night as though drawn by an unseen power, lay my bedroll on the floor, and happily slumber upon the cold solidness. 
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“Maybe there’s something wrong with his bed,” my concerned parents mused.  So my dad set to work building me a nice bunkbed-desk combo he had found the plans for in a woodworking magazine.  I tried to love it, but still, I would crawl down off my soft perch and splay out on my bedroom floor.  The problem wasn’t the bed.

When my mother took me to the doctor for a checkup, and he asked her if everything seemed good with me, she said, “Yes, doctor, but he prefers sleeping on floors.”  The doctor rubbed his chin, mused over me afresh, and said, “Perhaps it’s a phase.”  This hope pacified her ‘til the next checkup, but his response made me wonder about my strange habit since even the medical field had no answers for such an oddity.

At sleepovers, my friends thought I was just being generous to let them have the bed all to themselves, but really, I just wanted the floor.  Give me a blanket and pine planking, a sleeping bag and concrete, or a plastic tent and a backyard.  People wondered why.  I wondered why.  I started to believe I was just weird, and it caused me to worry about my future.  Would I forever live with this peculiar flat-floored-forty-wink-fetish?  

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​Many years later, lying for the hundredth time on misshapen stones, gazing groggily but enraptured by the early morning mist, hanging heavily in the river valley, and listening to the forest wake up, I suddenly knew why I loved to sleep on floors as a kid!  I realized in that moment that my childhood habit was more than a curious happenstance—an eccentric nature. It had been God’s preparation, even those years ago, for “the works, which God prepared in advance for [me] to do (Eph. 2:10)!  

​Now that I’m grown and in my right mind, I truly appreciate a good bed—Sealys and Sertas, memory foam and pillow-tops alike.  But as it turns out, God has purposes for our lives that start at infancy, and though we may not understand our quirks and intricacies, they often play a part in the greater story.  Only God knew His calling me to be a wilderness expedition instructor would result in countless nights of sleeping out in open spaces on ensolite pads beneath nylon tarps.  But, don’t feel bad for me. I’ve slept pretty well on most of those occasions—cold nights, stormy nights, hot and muggy nights.  I’d been falling asleep on hard surfaces since I was a kid, tempered by a God-given nature, preparing me for the work He had ordained for me to do.  

Jeremiah 29:11 reminds us, “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.”  Always before when I read this passage, it drew my attention to the future, causing me to wonder, “What does God have for me next?”  But lately, I’ve discovered that we can see ahead better when we look back and observe the patterns and preferences we’ve demonstrated all along the way.  It’s as if we were hardwired to turn out the way we are.  When I bring into the present the quirks and intricacies of the past that have made me who I am, I can see that my present abilities and talents perfectly fit the design of God’s plan. I no longer just shrug my shoulders and offhandedly remark, “I guess I’m just good at sleeping outside,” but give credit to a loving Creator who made me this way and set me up for success at the plans He had for me. 
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I don’t know what your quirks and intricacies are, but you’ve got them and God wants to use them.  God’s been doing design work in you since you were young, getting you ready for your destiny.  My suggestion is that you remember who you’ve always been and invite your past self into the present plans that God is unfolding in your life.  When you do this, you will find it easier to love yourself for who you are, love our great God who made you, and point to Him when people draw attention to your odd set of talents and skills.  Sleep well!

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​“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”
Psalm 139:14