Next week I get to teach sharing time about how family prayer strengthens my family. So I tried to think of an incident when I've experienced this in our family but some of the memories coming to my mind wouldn't actually be defined as "strengthening." Family Prayer can be a little bit of a challenge at our house. I have loved how Jared is pretty consistent at initiating morning and nightly prayers - but I sometimes they're far from the "spiritual experience" you envision when you see the pictures of family prayer in primary. Usually Daniel and Emily are so anxious to be the one chosen, they get a little upset if they don't get picked, which is funny because when I was growing up we had the opposite problem at our house. If everyone's happy with who gets to say the prayer, then sometimes there's a bit of contention about who gets to sit next to dad during the prayer.
Emily's prayers are always short and sweet - like her.
Rebecca takes after the Knight genes. She just hopes Emily will insist its her turn when Rebecca gets chosen.
Daniel is very sincere and I love how he usually remembers to pray for others and be grateful.
Jacob is very anxious to let all of his wants known, so we had a little talk before prayers the other night and asked him to try to thank more and ask for less for himself. So as he prayed he said, "Please bless dad so that he can earn lots of money..." (okay at least he's praying for dad to get money - not himself) "...so that he can buy me a motorcycle." Anyway, I think we'll have to keep on having the gratitude in prayer lesson in family night a few more times.
Another recurring incident at family prayer time was spurred by the primary song "Let us Gather in a Circle and Kneel for Family Prayer." Maybe our family takes that circle part a little bit too literally. They all want their knees to be touching so we have a real circle - so sometimes their kneeling can look a little bit more like doing the splits.
I think I'll have to share something about family prayer when I was growing up, because I do remember my mom and dad praying specifically for each of us as children during family prayer and knowing that they loved us and knew the Lord was hearing our prayers. So maybe when my kids are older they'll have those kinds of memories too.
Good things...
My kids love to pray (well at least the younger ones)
My children are listening to the primary songs
My husband is a good example of remembering to pray
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The joys of family prayer. If you get any great ideas for sharing time, let me know, I have to teach it too.
ReplyDeleteThat is so funny! All of my boys but Justin have the Knight genes, so we finally had to assign everyone a night of the week. Justin is the only one who is excited when it is his turn, that's for sure!
ReplyDeleteI think most of my kids got the Knight genes too....hmmmmmm! I love family prayer. It always starts out crazy with lots of giggling, but it's such a reverent, loving time (mostly...sometimes the giggling continues through the prayer!) that I will miss as our circle gets smaller. I hope that doesn't happen too quickly!
ReplyDeleteHa ha ha, I like your family prayer stories! :) I think that sounds more like a typical family prayer time than the pictures in primary--guess those pictures are giving us something to aim for. I remember even after I was in college coming home and having family prayer and one of the boys inevitably started us all laughing during the prayer.
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