Glow in the Dark Rosary

I was cleaning the other day and I came across my first rosary… Well, technically the first rosary that I received after returning to the Catholic Church as an adult.  I received it on the final day of a retreat I attended with Jovenes para Cristo, a group of young adults that my brother and I belonged to for our first years as grown-up Catholics.  On the final day each of us got a baggie filled with prayers from intercessors, notes of encouragement, saint cards and a plastic-glow-in-the-dark rosary.  In terms of my conversion Mary was a difficult point of change, so those initial days as a revert praying the rosary was not something that came naturally or that I turned to as form of prayer.  Even so, I knew that the beads I was given held power.  After my brother died, I used to have a lot of nightmares and difficulty sleeping so I used to clutch to that rosary during the night like a knight commits to his sword.  Just holding it would push away the bad dreams.  Mostly during my initial years back into the Catholic Church I used that rosary as a talisman that pushed away night terrors.  It laid beside me on my nightstand ready for battle, even the glow-in-the-dark feature came in handy because in the darkness I was able to find the sacramental easily.  Many a night I clutched it to survive the darkness and every time it never failed to protect me and push away terrible dreams.

I was dusting and the rosary slipped from the bottom of a little box that lies on my nightstand with my praying materials.  It’s been years since I have used it to drive away bad dreams, now it just holds memories of where I came from, the dark place that God delivered me from.  Today, I have beautiful rosaries that I have gotten in my travels and vintage beads given to me- these pieces make my first plastic rosary appear quite tacky, but its rich sentimental value and our history make it so precious to me.  Even the literal fact that it’s easily found in darkness speaks volumes.  Every day, I try to pray the rosary, it’s become one of my favored forms of prayer.  I love holding the beads in my hands and moving one bead at a time, at each mystery I stop and pray for a special intention while pausing to reflect on Christ’s life.  I like the ritual and repetition of this form of prayer especially when I am too overwhelmed to come to God using my own inept words.  I love the feeling of moving forward and the sense of completion when I come to the end of the rosary prayers.  And on the rare night that a bad dream invades my mind I still turn to the rosary, no longer as an amulet but a powerful form of prayer that brings light and pushes the shadows away.  Do you have a special rosary?