Another post about child prayers

Clay has been cracking us up with his prayers lately. He is giving a lot of thought to his prayers and they do come from the heart, but boy are they funny!

For example:

About a week ago he gave family prayer at the end of the day. He is trying to pray for individual people in our family I guess and it's sometimes hilarious what he says. So he was praying for Aunt Jacque--who is actually my aunt, his great-aunt--and he said, "And please help Aunt Jacque....long pause...that whatever problems she has...long pause...that those problems will come back to her." (What?? Haha, I don't think he really knew what he said.)

Then there was this in Sharing Time opening exercises on Sunday (I'm a primary teacher so I'm glad I just happened to be there to hear it.) He volunteered to say the opening prayer. He starts his prayer : "Dear Heavenly Father I'm thankful for my family...LONG, LONG PAUSE....he looks up and looks around the room...and I'm thankful for all the other families too." He always starts his prayers off with "I'm thankful for my family" and I thought it was so cute how he decided to be thankful for the other families too.

And what is it with the following part of family prayers at our house that ALL of our children (expect Paige) pray for on a regular basis?!?! "Please bless (fill in the blank with a sibling's name) that he/she will close his/her eyes for the entire prayer."

And last, but not least, have you ever had this prayer situation at YOUR house? Because we have had it multiple times at our house...

Hailey gives wonderful, thoughtful, heartfelt LONG prayers even if it's just a simple blessing on the food. It can go on...and on...and on...I mean she'll start praying for all the apostles and being thankful for things like clouds and saying thank you for each individual dish of food at the table...wow! And as Joey and I sit there with our arms folded and heads bowed we'll hear a whimper from Paige (whose prayer limit is about 30 seconds), then a whine, then she'll start crying, then she starts trying to climb on the table to grab the food and asking to eat. None of this phases Hailey, she'll be engrossed in her prayer being thankful for the monkey bars at the school playground or something like that. Patience and deep breaths get me through it. By the time she's done I'm doing stress management breathing techniques while continually whispering to Clay "not yet, shhhhh..." while simultaneously spooning a bit of food onto Paige's high chair to keep her from completely loosing it. Keeps me on my toes. :)

Post Script: Another funny prayer said by Clay recently: "Please help Miles to tell the truth. Help Paige to get what she gets and not have a fit. Help Hailey not to whine. Help Mom to be nice to us." Well, hmmm, amen to all that son! Way to notice our best qualities : D ;) It honestly cracks me up.