Thursday, January 15, 2009

prayer beads

Pin It Now! I still need to finish my vacation blogging, but until then ...


Lydia is not what you'd call a "prayer warrior". Maybe "prayer jokester" would be an appropriate name for her. We pray with the kids before they go to bed every night. Sometimes Lydia does not want to pray at all. Other times she prays by recounting her day or something that happened weeks before. Often times she kind of copies what Elijah prayed or has prayed in the past. For example, he has this habit of opening his prayer with this: "Dear God, please help everyone to feel good and safe. You know, Lord. You know." Shiloh and I are not big, "You know, Lord. You know, Lord" ers so we are not sure where he picked that up. For a while he would say, "You know Lord." Over and over and over again. He has finally broken that habit and usually just does that in his opening line. So of course Lyds has to steal that line. Elijah also prays for homeless people every night, but he prays different things for them so it seems like it is really coming from his heart rather than a habit. But he often prays this, "Please help the homeless people to have their needs." Lydia has now hijacked that line and made it, "Please help the homeless people get their names."
Tonight she took it to another level, "Please help the homeless people have their POO!" (then giggles along with Elijah).
"Please help the homeless people have their PEE!" (I am now laughing)
"Please help the homeless people have their BOO-TAY!" (tee, hee, hee).
Okay, enough kids. Time for bed. It is hard because on the one hand I want them to "be in the habit" of praying regularly. On the other hand I want it to come from their hearts. To take it seriously. To want to pray and not be forced to pray. And on the other hand, Lydia is 2 1/2 years old ... and her Dad dresses her like this. 'Nuff said





At preschool, if a kid gets hurt in anyway, the teachers write it down and send home the report. On Tuesday Elijah came home from school with an "Ouch Report" that read:

"A small bead was noticed in Elijah's ear which he had found. The bead was extracted and we checked for other beads." When I first read it I chuckled because .... well ... it's funny! But of course it is only funny because the bead wasn't lodged up in his brain or something and they got it out. No problems. So Shiloh and I and Grandpa and everyone Elijah has ever known has had the serious talk with him about not putting things in his mouth, ears, nose. Even his Dr. got to tell him because we ended up at her office later in the day after Lydia dumped her heavy duty shopping cart on his face (while he was laying on the ground) causing a big gash in his lip. His lip is healing fine and the doctor prescribed him a popsicle. Pin It Now!

3 comments:

Meghan said...

Seriously I am in tears laughing at Lydia's prayer that they find their names... Adam and I both laughed out loud! Love your kids and all the wonderful stories you share about them!!

JdeLou said...

Your kids really do give you fantastic material to write about! Love it!

Andra Jamison said...

Those are the kind of prayers that Trevor would totally encourage! We have many of those moments too, when I wonder "does any of this get through to them?" but that story is simply fabulous!!