teach us to pray

in the MIDDLE of dinner when sophia reached out both of her hands and said, 'ma! da! ma! da!' i couldn't figure out what she wanted. i offered her everything that was on the table and could not please her. so finally i just offered her my hand. she then turned to matt holding out her hand, 'da! da!' until he too offered his hand. she bowed her head and waited.

she wanted to pray.

i looked at matt and he offered simple one line prayer. when we said amen she raised her head and sighed with a smile.

dinner continued until - hands extended - sophia started in, 'ma! da!' this time we knew what she wanted. so we held out our hands and matt again offered a simple but different prayer.

and this is how it goes every night at dinner - over and over and over.

when we first sit down to eat, the family hold hands, bows our heads and prays. it happens naturally and routinely. if i'm honest i am not thinking about what it's teaching my kids or even that it is a 'teaching moment'. i try so hard in other parts of my day to notice and take advantage of 'teachable moments', but it's not even crossing my mind at that point of the day. maybe that's how it's supposed to happen though. not stressing over these 'teachable moments', but your relationship with the Lord just happening and them observing. but that's not really what this post is about...

it's about how in the last few weeks, sophia has taught us how to pray. in short bursts, in the middle of conversations, smack dab in the middle of an argument. all of the sudden little soph will call us to pray and the entire family will just stop what they're doing and pray. mid-sentence, mid-bite. we drop our things, we hold hands and we pray. matt and i take turns saying short prayers. in the beginning they were simply something to appease sophia, but now they have developed into simple, short, deep, rich, in-the-moment outpourings to God.

and when the amen is given soph raises her head, sighs and gives us a grin.