The Bear prays before we eats. He folds his hands and says his little prayer of "ya ya la ya" or something along those lines.
It's how it's always been for him.
We were over at a friend's house for dinner. The mom asked if needed anything else as she was sitting down. Teddy folded his hands and waited to pray. The other family goes to church. They know we do. Why did it take a 2 year old to make us pray out loud before we ate?
He has a play kitchen and likes to bring me meals. He makes me pray before I "eat" his food. He prays before snack time. He prays before he gets the second slice of pizza.
It was driving me crazy. Seriously, how many times did we have to pray?
Then, I realized God never gets tired of hearing thank you.
And, it took a 2 year old to teach me that.
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1 comment:
Excuse this long comment, but, what can I say, your blog inspires me!
My family and I recite grace at meals, "God bless this food to our use" etc. It's a bit rote, we do the same grace night after night, but I think it's better than nothing.
Some of our friends say grace extemporaneously, but I've never been awfully comfortable with that, probably because no matter how sincere I am I'm not very good at it.
I felt guilty for years about not praying consistently at bed time, and with good reason. I know that prayer is to faith as water is to the body: without it we're spiritually desiccated; with it we are what we were meant to be, spiritually vital.
I half-recall a saying (from St Paul?), "I know what is right, and I approve of it in others, but still I do the wrong thing" (something like that). That's me completely.
Recently, two of my family members contracted cancer. I pray for them consistently, just a brief prayer, asking God to bless them and each member of my family. It's not much, but maybe it's a start.
Being thankful, I agree with you, is so important. I love God in part because I'm grateful and I wish to express and share my gratitude.
One time I was sitting on a bench in London looking across the river Thames to Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, watching the approach of a spectacular lightening storm. I so much wanted to share that extraordinary scene with a loved one, but I was alone, and so for me the experience was somehow diminished. A life without shared gratitude, I think, is similarly impoverished.
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