The Power of Prayer

Isabelle has been praying at bedtime since she was born. Well, OK, I said a prayer over her crib for a long time, and then I recited the prayers for a while as she held her hands in prayer. But Daddy took the initiative to teach her the "Our Father" last year and she now recites it every night before bed.

I took the initiative a few months later to explain the "Our Father" to her, and why we have to tell God we're sorry that we sinned, and ask him to forgive us, and that we'll try to do better tomorrow, and how we have to forgive our friends when they are mean to us at school.

We then added an element of saying one thing we're thankful for after we pray. Ed says one thing, I do, and then we ask Isabelle to name one thing. In the beginning she was thankful for her wall. Her clock. Her door. She didn't really "get it". But in recent weeks, she finally has started to understand how it works and she comes up with some pretty good ones. She's thankful she got to talk to Mom-Mom SuSu on the phone, or that she had a good day at school, or that she learned a new song, or that it was a warm day (instead of a yucky cold day).

I just tonight added another element to prayer time of sending one special prayer out to someone who really needs it. Let's face it, there are a LOT of people in our lives who need an extra prayer these days, and I try to hit most of them during my own daily prayers. But for Iz, I thought it would be important to start getting her to understand that we don't just recite a memorized prayer and that's it. We have to pray for others as well as ourselves.

Tonight's special prayer went out to Ed's cousin, Kristy and her husband, Mike. Mike was diagnosed with Acute Lymphomic Leukemia in July 2009. He's been in and out of remission over the past 18 months and has hit another road bump in his recovery this week. He's in the ICU at the wonderful Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa and he's fighting harder than any Doctor or Nurse has ever witnessed. He will hopefully be moved out of the ICU tomorrow after another scary week, with hopes of continuing to gain strength, platelets, and all those other things that Leukemia patients have to fight for...things that we all take for granted every day.

So, tonight's first night of "special prayers for others" with Isabelle went out to Kristy and Mike and their two children. And they will probably get Isabelle's special prayers for a while, until Mike clears yet another hurdle in his battle to health. Isabelle hasn't even met these people yet, but I'm hoping that might become even more of a lesson.