Dinner Prayer

Three years into this parenting thing, and it's a blast. There's a lot of chaos, but in a weird sort of way, Charity and I both enjoy just a hint of that in our lives. Sometimes, the most insane time of the day is at dinner. Zeke needs to be fed, Rachel needs to be coached through her meal (crazy kid just doesn't eat without being prodded), and Kari needs to either be held, or fall asleep just as we sit down for the meal. All this while you try to feed yourself too. Meal time just isn't the relaxing, "How was your day?" event that it used to be.

Wednesday nights are usually even more crazy. I'm sitting down to eat, but my mind is on youth group that night. I know I have to leave shortly, and Rachel is a "Cubbie" now, so Charity has to run her off to a church accross town. We herd the children to their respective seats, Kari is "playing" out in the livingroom, so we need to use this brief moment to feed the troops.

Everyone is seated and ready to pray...

Me: Dear Jesus...

Rachel: No, me!

Me: (looking up) What?

Rachel: I wanna pray.

Me and Charity: Ok, go ahead. (Charity and I bow are heads even though we know the kids aren't. It's probably a very dangerous thing for us to both take our eyes off of the kids, but for tradition and to try to teach the kids to do it, we give it a shot.)

Rachel: Dear Jesus, thank you for this beautiful day...(pretty much every prayer from Rach begins this way...not that that's bad.) Thank you for this beautiful dinner...Thank you that we could play outside...

Zeke: Ament! (not sure where the "t" at the end of Amen has come from, but he's clearly had enough and is ready to eat.)

Rachel: Thank you for beautiful Mommy

Zeke: Ament!

Rachel: Thank you for beautiful Daddy (It's ok to laugh at that one. That's certainly a new adjective to describe me.)

Zeke: Ament!

Rachel: Thank you for beautiful Zekers.

Zeke: Ament! (At this point I'm starting to wonder whether Zeke is actually becoming charismatic.)

Rachel: Thank you for beautiful Kari.

Zeke: Ament!

Rachel: And, uh....um....

Me and Charity: Amen.

Zeke: Ament!

No one warned me about moments like these as a dad. It was sweet to hear my daughter pray. It was hilarious to have Zeke interupting. Charity and I also were amused that Rachel was dragging the prayer out as long as she could (Rachel also has a "prayer voice"...not a prayer tongue...just a special voice she prays in which is very cute.)

Not to ruin the moment, but times like this also have deeper moments to them. It made me think about how child-like my prayers must sound to an omniscient God. It made me thankful that the Spirit is imploring for me, on my behalf. It made me realize the best thing I could do sometimes is probably just lift my eyes to God and shout, "Ament!"