Children sometimes say the darndest, cutest things. At our house lately it seems to happen at prayer time. We try to teach our children to think back on their day before praying to reflect on the blessings they received or maybe to recognize some mistakes they’ve made that they can work on and ask God for help with. Now children, in particular little children, are very honest about their feelings, wants, opinions, etc. Any mother can tell you that. So should I be surprised when I hear some of the requests or thanks made in prayers this past week?
Cookie: “Please help me to be a good girl on Sunday so I can get a cookie after church.”
Fudge: “I’m thankful that the pretty yellow roses bloomed but sad that not all of them bloomed and some have already died.”
Truffle: “We’re thankful for the food.” Not that unusual except she said it at least four times in the same prayer! And it wasn’t even mealtime.
Cookie: “I’m thankful I could go to town to the dollar store and buy a toy cell phone to play with. “
There were others but I forgot to write them down, darn it! Nothing beats this next incident that happened last fall while we tried to gather around the table for lunch. Just some precluding info we usually begin our prayers by saying “Dear Heavenly Father.”
It all started when Mr. Ferrero Rocher called Cookie ‘Dumbledore.’ We were sitting down around the table to eat lunch. Cookie then started to call everyone a name of one of the characters from the Harry Potter books. The girls have been listening to the books on CD so she was quick to spew the names out matching them up with whoever she thought was the best fit.
After a couple of minutes of this Mr. FR cut in and said, “Okay we need to say the blessing. Whose turn is it?”
“It’s Bon Bon’s.”
We all quietly bowed our heads.
“Dear Harry Potter. . .”
We laughed so hard there were tears streaming down our faces. Mr. FR was the only one who could gain enough control to actually say a proper blessing on the food. So who do you pray to at your house? Obviously there’s been a little too much Harry Potter madness at ours.
Are there any funny things your kids have said in their prayers?
I can remember when I was young and had been working hard in school to memorize what we had been learning…
I began the dinner prayer, “I pledge allegiance to the flag”
Whoops!
We’ve had one of the kids answer the phone, “Dear Heavenly Father” right after saying prayers. That was pretty funny.
But yours is classic!
We always say the classic Luther’s Table Prayer: “Come Lord Jesus, be our guest, and let these gifts to us be blest. Amen.” Or, “Thank you Jesus for my food, Amen,” if someone’s in a really urgent baby’s-gotta-eat-now mood!
If someone lets out a laugh during the prayer then they have to run around the house-IN THE DARK-
That is too funny. I think I have done the pledge of allegiance thing to when starting a prayer.
I love it when my daughter says, in her nighttime prayer, “thank you for blessing the food at dinner” as if she couldn’t have stomached it if He hadn’t blessed it.
I sat with my daughter to say nightime prayers a few days ago and she started correctly with the sign of the cross…then moved into our standard meal blessing rather than a personal night prayer.
I also enjoyed, a few years back, when our second son attempted to recite the Our Father. He was about 3 or 4. Rather than “hallowed by thy name”, I heard “Halloween is thy name.” I had tears running down my face as I tried to stop laughing and explain the difference to him. Thanks for an awesome post that brought back a sweet memory
My 4-year-old said “Please bless Ro-Ro (our dog) to drive safely” in his prayer once, and since everyone else laughed, he used that line in every one of his prayers for a few more weeks.
For awhile there, we had a big struggle to get T to remember to bless the food during meal time prayers. The prayers would go on & on & on, but no mention of the food. Then after she closed the prayer, she’d tack on, “oh yeah…please bless the food, name of Jesus Christ Amen”
After saying her prayers one night, Katelyn asked why Jesus cries. Who told her Jesus cries. I asked. “We say Jesus cries, amen, Mom.”
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