Every night, we give the kids a chance to say their own prayer. Lanie and Lydia are always the first to raise their hands and they always start with, "Thank you God for this wonderful day. . ." followed up with really random things about their day. It seems for the past year Elijah usually passes and rushes to our long list of "God Bless . . . ". But the past few nights, things have been different. I don't know if it's because we started trying a family devotion book, which happens to be the same devotion book they do at school, or because he's been listening to the Bible readings and discussions at school, but he's been totally interested and willing to pray in a way that is surprisingly more real than I ever gave him credit.
As I was going through the hundreds of things he brought home in his backpack from the last day of school, I found his prayer bag. Each student had a bag on the wall and could write prayers throughout the year and stick them in there. I haven't yet asked if the teacher read them out loud during devotions or they were just silent ones, but I was a bit touched by some of the people he remembered. Most of them seemed to be for his dad: "Please help my dad have fun in Haiti", "Please help my dad's mouth feel better from his wisdom teeth." He included my uncle who has been really sick and our friend who had knee surgery. It was a 2nd grader's prayer list, nothing too deep, but a relief to see that what we talk about at night makes it to school and what faith-based things he's getting at school, makes it home. Not sure that relief is the right word, but really refreshing.
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