we pray

this past week emma got sent home from school with the "i'm someone special" bag. it was filled with a children's bible, a devotional for parent and child, a bible game, a book, and crayons and a notebook. the notebook was for emma to draw a picture about what we read together. so i flipped through the devotional and suggested a few of the topics. as i read out the devotion titled, "pray about it!" she wanted to do that one. 

the scripture was philippians 4:6 "do not worry about anything. but pray and ask God for everything you need." we talked about praying about anything and everything. when you are sad, angry, happy, thankful... we talked about praying with your eyes open or closed. praying anytime. because God always listens. also we talked about our house being a house of prayer. 

and as i say we talked i mean we spent probably five minutes reading this little devotional and then me asking her a few open ended questions. this was a brief moment in time that i believe the Lord carved out. a quiet ten minutes of time alone with only one child is very rare in my house. 

and so on her first page she drew our house. actually she originally wanted it to be the garage, but she drew it so big it ended up being the whole house. this she wanted to be our house a house of prayer.

and on the next page she put our family. we would have gone in the house but we couldn't fit. note russell and samuel have one long hair, and then the rest is short and curly. she was a little unsure of how to make their hair different. it's really fun to watch their art change as they grow. 

i'm not exactly sure how "we pray" became the words she wanted to write. i think pray seemed to short an explanation of what we had read, but she doesn't know how to do a lot of letters alone yet, so i suggested this for something fairly short - and she jumped on that phrase and wanted to put that. 

and the time was done and off she ran to the next thing. 

was it phineas and ferb in the next room?

possibly.

and as the day went on i started thinking about a blog, and about her pages she colored.

"we pray".

do we?

i have said that i long to be a prayer warrior. 

do i really?

if i did wouldn't i be doing it so much more.

then again, i know that He cares when i cry out in frustration, "help me Jesus!" as i am about to loose it on my three screaming kids grappling for my attention with "mommy!mommy!mommy!" and then "Lord my heart hurts thinking about them not needing me like that anymore" in my next breath. 

do i really know what it means to quiet myself before Him and listen? do i know the discipline of silencing all of the noise in my mind that invades the quiet of the night when the kids are in bed and i actually have the time to take all alone with Him? do i even take the time to be with Him?
having three young children is no excuse for not being in His Word. having three young children is even more of a reason to run to it. and to run to Him in prayer, however and whenever it may be. whether long or short. whether a groaning of the Spirit my Words can't express or a quiet Word of thankfulness and love.
for my Jesus who died for me. my Jesus who rose again to set me free. and my family. and my neighbors. and you.
i want it to be true of us.
"we pray".
when the kids are grown that they can truthfully say our home was one of prayer. not to fake faith. but truly because we are so aware of our brokenness and inability to do anything without Him. because we fall more and more in love with Him with each passing moment. thank you Lord for teaching me through emma today.