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Praying for Families, Parents and Children

Young Families

March 17, 2022

blog

Jenna Bruni

Family Prayer
 
adapted from Traci Smith’s book Faithful Families for Lent, Easter and Resurrection 
 
“Now close your eyes, fold your hands and bow your heads.” One of the traditional ways we teach children about entering into prayer, expect that none of those things are particularly child friendly. How about instead if we encourage kids to open their eyes, stretch out their arms like a great big hug and lift their heads to the heavens…now that sounds more kid friendly. Here are some ideas from Traci’s book that sound fun: 
 

Use Prayer Beads: 

  • Pick four different colors to represent four different types of prayers. One color for gratitude, another for self, another for others and a fourth for the world/nation. Pick a number between one and ten and put that number of beads on your string, for instance four each for the four types of prayer. Then place a larger different type of bead between the colors to divide them. 
  • There is not particular anything with regard to the prayer beads, they are simply a physical point of focus that does help keep your mind from wandering – it will, but you have something in your hands to bring you back. 

 

Use Candles: 
  • Write whatever or whoever you are praying for on a piece of paper and place that under the candle. 
  • Light a candle and send a picture of the candle to the person you are praying for with the message, “ This candle is a prayer for you. Thinking of you and sending you love.” 
  • When you have something very specific to pray for, say the prayer out loud and then light the candle, saying “ God, this candle is my prayer for ______.” When you blow the candle out, say, “ Lord, hear my prayer.” 

 

Easter Egg Prayers 
  • Fill an Easter basket with open (unassembled) plastic eggs. Encourage your family members to write their prayers on slips of paper and close them inside the eggs, pictures work just fine. When the basket is full, take time together, open the eggs and read the prayers. If it is still early enough in Lent, you might do this twice before Easter. 
  • There are several more ideas in Faithful Families which might suit you better. If you would like a copy there are several in my mailbox that you are welcome to.
 
 
Parent Prayer
 
From the Follow Me curriculum: “Prayer is a central practice for people of faith. One may pray in a worship service, in times of crisis, or in moments of gratitude. Prayer as a spiritual discipline has at its root a desire to grow closer to God. Building a relationship with another person or with God requires intentionality and conversation. It requires consistent conversation, expressing all sorts of feelings, and listening as well. Prayer is the foundation of a deepening relationship with God.” 

Richard Rohr on prayer: 

Spirituality is about being ready. All the spiritual disciplines of your life – prayer, study, meditation or ritual, religious vows – are there so you can break through to the eternal. Spirituality is about awakening the eyes, the ears, the heart so you can see what’s always happening right in front of you. 

Prayer is sitting in silence until it silences us, choosing gratitude until we are grateful, and praising God until we ourselves are an act of praise. 

Mature prayer always breaks into gratitude. 

Your heart has to be prepared ahead of time through faith and prayer and grace and mercy and love and forgiveness so you can keep your heart open in hell, when hell happens.
 

 

Kids Prayer
 
Prayer is our second spiritual discipline, our second way of learning how to be like Jesus. Prayer is talking to God. This week we are going to talk about us doing all the talking even through when you really talk to someone you both talk AND listen. 
 
What kinds of things can we talk to God about? Absolutely everything. We can wake up and thank God for a good night sleep and lots of fun dreams. We can thank God for good food to have for breakfast and all the people who worked to get the food on our table. We can thank God for warm clothes or for clothes that aren’t too hot and itchy. We can thank God for living in our neighborhoods and for having nice schools to go to. We can ask God for help on our math quizzes. We can tell God we felt bad when got picked last for kickball again, but that we tried our best anyway. 
 
There is no particular right or wrong way to pray. Some people like to get down on their knees and fold their hands. Some people like to lift their arms over their heads. Others like to quietly turn their hands over. I like to pray when I walk or when I ride my bike. I know some people pray while they do yoga and others when they run. 
 

Sometimes we pray with other people, like when we pray before dinner and when we pray at church. Sometimes our prayers are songs. Sometimes we ask God for things, sometimes we thank God for things. And sometimes we just tell God how we feel. The main thing is that we know that God is there and that God listens. We should also know that God answers prayers. It is not always in the way we hope for or expect and sometimes in ways we aren’t aware of for a long, long time. But always in the way that is best for us.

 

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