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christinacoley831

Habits: Do I Have Them or Do They HAVE Me?

Updated: Oct 27


“I want to read about the little girl in her little bed!”



Every night it is the same thing with one of my kids before bed. We have a “Jesus Storybook Bible,” which is fantastic! The pictures are relatable and the text understandable. One of my kids is determined to focus in on the same story, repeatedly, every night. The story is about Jairus coming to ask Jesus to heal his daughter, and the healing of the woman who traverses through the crowd in order to touch the hem of His robe while He walks to heal. It is a mere six pages in length, and we have read it so much that nearly all the kids can say the entire story word for word. So, I try something different most nights just to test the waters.


“What about Jonah and the whale?”

“NO!”

“Daniel in the lions’ den is great!”

“NO!”

“How about when Jesus was born?!”

“NO! NO! Mama, I want to read about the little girl in her little bed!!”


The story of Jairus’ daughter, or “The Little Girl in Her Little Bed” as we know it in my house, is something this child and, now, most of the kids expect every evening. One by one they will filter into the room where I am reading. Once, I made the mistake of disregarding the request, without asking, and reading another story and, oh my, the tumult I caused.


Ritual is very important. Every evening, I hear the cadence of my voice reading the same story. Sometimes, I hear my own delight in seeing my little girl in her little bed connecting to Jairus’ daughter. I am in the ritual and being changed by it as well. Did God decide I needed to change by way of my kids' demand for this story? They are my personal sacramentals from Him...


Other times, I am incredibly tired and the fatigue presents itself in the way I read the text or allow the kids to take over the story. Regardless, the habit is set and we participate. The way we do it is different, almost every time, because we bring different energy levels and moods to it. The habit is its own mirror into ourselves if we compare the way we are doing it (the way we sit or lean over on the floor to listen and the dynamics of our voices during the ritual) to the way it was done yesterday. Habits are very telling about “what’s really going down.”

Habits can happen to me or I can participate in forming them, but they happen, nonetheless. The habit surrounding kids and prayer behaves the same way as any habit. A prayer habit will tell those participating how things are going based on the way it is carried out. So, if you have a habit to pray each morning on your own, as you go through your habit, you will, inevitably be met with how you are doing; the habit is a mirror. Are you tired? Does the prayer feel dry? Are you unexpectedly joyful or overwhelmed by peace?

Now, let’s consider a habit of prayer with kids. Inside of that habit, there is information on how we are all doing. Kids do not usually come out and express deep emotions with surface level words; usually, they express their true feelings in the way they do things.


What is my habit on a “regular day” when it comes to praying with my kids? What is the way that they each do things? I will call that the baseline habit, and reference that baseline as a comfortable place where my kids and I pray together; we know how it sounds and feels whenever we are participating in the way of the prayer habit. I get to know them as they worship and have seen many things about their personalities just by observing as we pray together on a “regular day.”


It really does not matter what you choose as the prayer habit with your kids on a “regular day.” It only matters that you set the habit with intention.

Sometimes, I am just exhausted, overwhelmed (insert word that describes you!) and my “regular day” is just not happening. What is my habit to pray with my kids on those days? Each day is different, and, if I am willing to be small enough to see that our circumstances are different (because of our moods and energy levels are changing), something different may be asked of me. “Regular day” habits, set with intention, make the more difficult days easier. If I am too tired to lead us through our prayer habit, one of the kids can easily and confidently take over, but completing the ritual happens (nearly all the time) and we have a shared responsibility in it.


God’s grace is unending, on the “regular days” and the “not so regular days.” Getting small will allow one to cultivate the habit of responding to each moment with the intent to acknowledge this moment is different from yesterday. It will be different than the one tomorrow. We can change and grow in response to those moments if we notice they are different. In doing so, we open our hearts to the possibility that we will become different over time just as each moment in time is different.



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