Prayer Time

Our prayer time before meals is getting longer, and longer and longer...

Now that we have 3 children that can talk well and can understand what it is to pray for someone, our prayers are getting quite lengthy. It starts out innocently enough: In the name of the Father.... but wait, we went too fast for Emily!!! So we start over again.... V-E-R-Y slowly so everyone can keep up.

Bless us, Oh Lord and these Thy gifts... "Pray Aimee!!!!" Mason shouts.
"Yes honey, we can pray for Aimee in a minute."

Which we are about to receive... "I'm going to pray for you Mommy!" Emily wants us to know.
"Thank you Emily. Just a minute."

From Thy bounty... "But I was going to pray for you Mommy!" Sam cries.
"You can pray for me too Samantha. Hold on."

Through Christ our Lord, Amen. Whew! We made it!
"OK, everybody, now who would like to say something?"

"Pray Aimee!" "Bless Mommy..." "No, Emily, I was going to say that!"
"One at a time guys."

And so they go around one at a time praying for friends, family, pets, and sometimes even their blankets. Sometimes they start out saying they are going to pray for one person and then midway through, decide that that person doesn't need their prayers and they start all over praying for someone else. I get prayed for alot... haven't quite figured out if it's because they love me that much, or if they seriously can see how many prayers I need!

They may start out praying that their friend will stay safe and it turns into an entire story about how they hope God will let their friend go camping and have a campfire with s'mores and maybe they can even build sandcastles on the beach after they go swimming with their new swimsuit on.

So we sit and let them pray while our food gets cold and congeals on our plates. I think once Ben can talk, we might even have to start prayer time BEFORE dinner is even ready!

But that's OK. I don't imagine God is tapping the toe of His foot waiting for it to be over. I imagine Him looking down on our little family gently nodding His head thinking "It is good." :)