When I started using this space as a canvas to think about praying with kids, I was hesitant as the feeling of "I don't know what I am doing" was (and still is) pretty strong. My direct communicating mind chose a very direct name to the end: prayer with kids. The exploration was literally the title. What's going on in these moments of prayer with kids? Why can prayer with kids feel so calm and pristine only to feel tumultuous and cloudy in the very next prayer time with them?
Kids are, to me, personal sacramentals from God. Kids' hearts have these very unique files that meet the inner life's rougher edges. Enough said. Prayer with kids- is that moment of calm and pristine something my heart is emanating to them, or vice versa? Is the tumult and cloudy feeling due to the fluctuations of my heart or theirs...or both?
Here's a disturbing thought. What if it feels like something completely new is being created., because this IS completely new? I am mildly sarcastic here, but mostly serious. What if the destination in shared prayer between kids and parents is leading both of us to a completely new place I could never imagine or predict? Is prayer with kids, possibly, a completely new path that I think I understand only to find as I traverse it with them, we are traveling together down a path neither of us has ever seen? A path to Jesus, waiting for us at the Tree of Life.
Since it is a new path for both the adult and the kid(s) together, with the adult leading, the task seems to be somewhat of an extra burden. Mainly, I have these little wonders staring up at me as if I know the way or, worse, that I know how to handle anything. What are the signposts to me personally I can look for we are headed in the direction of God? I have found a few, and here’s one of them.
There’s prayer, as in a prayer that is said, and there is the “pray-er.” Pray-er, as in the one praying is the action itself within the one doing the action. When I am the pray-er in prayer, for a moment don't I become what I am doing? Where else in my life can I point to becoming what I am doing? Furthermore, it seems God has hallowed being a pray-er in prayer with kids by granting the grace to become what I am doing. Even though the experience can really fluctuate along the continuum, I don’t have to meet a standard before prayer: sometimes there's laughter or tears or sleepiness or (insert strong emotion while in prayer with kids!). Regardless, I am the pray-er in the prayer…with kids.
So, whether it is calm and pristine or tumultuous and cloudy, we press forward without judgment knowing we have accepted the invitation regardless of what we were doing, judging, or thinking. Keep looking for signposts that you and your kids are on the journey to Jesus’ Tree of Life, and touch base to let me know some you have found.
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