Evolving Prayer Life

Our family is following a daily Lenten devotional that we found at our favorite religious store, Hurley's, in Sioux Falls. Our Church made available to the parishioners another devotional. I have been praying it on my own. Today's reflection was about prayer and how it changes from childhood through adulthood.

When I was a little girl, bedtime prayers were an everyday fact of life. "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, but if I die before I wake, I pray to God my soul to take." In retrospect, that is a kind of frightening prayer. It covers all the bases. You ask to continue life, but, just in case, you ask to be cared for in death. I never put much thought into those rote words, I just recited them like a dutiful child, along with my lengthy list of "God bless Mommy, Daddy, Debi, Grandma, Grandpa, Dun Grandma, and keep Laurie safe and bring her home." I had forgotten that, but my cousin had run away from home several times. Every time she was gone, we prayed for her to come home safe and sound. God protected and brought her home every time.

Every family meal was preceded by the Catholic table grace, even after we joined the Methodist Church. We always sat in exactly the same places around the table, heads down, hands folded. These prayers were only at home. We did not pray when we traveled to family. We did not pray in restaurants.

As time passed, bedtime prayers, faded. Meal time prayers continued until I was in high school. After my parents divorced, I don't remember them as often, but I know they still happened at least occasionally.

Today, we pray before all family meals. Most of the time it is the Catholic table grace. Sometimes, we pray the table prayer Dave grew up with in his Lutheran home. We pray at home. We pray at Grandma's house. We pray in restaurants. We hold hands and pray together.

We pray every school day before the boys leave on the bus and Dave leaves for work. We pray in thanksgiving to the blessings we have had in the day. We pray to be kept safe and brought home together each night. We pray for our friends and family who are in need of God's touch.

We pray regularly to St. Anthony, since we seem to lose things on a regular basis. We ask for guidance on where to look. When we locate the missing object, we pray again, in thanksgiving for the assistance we received.

Currently, we are praying a Lenten devotional. The boys seem interested. The publisher has other devotionals for other seasons in the year. This may be something we continue once Lent has transitioned into Easter.

We pray the rosary, but not as consistently as we should. I have fond memories of praying the rosary with my best friend's family when I was a little girl. On Saturday evenings, after supper, everyone went to the living room. Everyone knelt on the floor, facing a a piece of furniture. If you did not have a rosary with you, which I never did since I was a Methodist, you used your finger rosary. Mrs. Haberman told me the reason God gave us ten fingers was so we would have enough for each Hail Mary of each decade of the rosary.

I pray the daily readings from the Saint of the Day books. I speak with God in silent prayer, spoken prayer and in song. I thought I didn't pray much, but in reflecting today, I realize I spend more time in prayer than I had actively thought I did.

I was given a solid prayer background by both my parents and Mrs. Haberman. My prayer today is that we will give our children a similar base to develop their own personal prayer relationship with Jesus.