Lainey's Prayers

We have started insisting that Lainey say prayers on her own, without our help. Each prayer that she has said since then (its been a couple of weeks) has many common elements. For example, they all start with "we are thankful for this day" and the rest of the prayer is made up of "please bless" even if its something that should have been a "we're thankful for" it still ends up as "please bless." Another common element as of late is "bless that we can drive safely and not crash." I feel kind of bad about that one--do I talk a lot about crashing? (Of course its better than Ang's prayer when we were getting ready to drive home from BYU once that went something like "Please bless us to be safe and not crash, but if we do crash, let it not be a bad one.")

Something I didn't appreciate the other day was that before prayers Butch and I were talking about how he needed to take his medicine (for his Valley Fever that is STILL ailing him! aaargh!). So in her prayer she said, "Bless that daddy can take his medicine. Bless that mommy can take her medicine." Sorry Lainey, there ain't no medicine for mommy--this is just how I am and nothing can fix it!

Something else I didn't appreciate was when she said, "Bless that Adria can feel better from her sick, bless that mommy can feel better from her sick and bless that I don't SPIT IT (her word for "throw up") ALL OVER MY BED tonight." She said those last words really slow and deliberate like as if to make sure I was paying attention.

Another common element of EVERY prayer is "Bless that Shandee, Matt, Megan and Ryan can go to Canada." Sometimes she mixes it up and leaves out Ryan. Some times she includes "And bless that Ryan's job is there." Sometimes she leaves out Matt, Megan and Ryan. But she ALWAYS blesses that Shandee can go to Canada, no matter what. Once she blessed that it could snow there and what-da-ya know--"Snow day" the next day! Ah, the faith of a child.

Anyway, when we first had her say her prayer all alone, she was timid at first, but then she just went off. It was so cute and sincere that I wrote it down. So here is Lainey's first official prayer:

Normal Opening . . .
Thank you for this day.
Please bless Daddy can't get sick.
Please bless Lainey, Mommy, Adria can't get sick
Please bless Mommy can tell the kids to do their homework
Please bless I can see a rainbow
Please bless Grandpa, Emi, Allie, Bina, and Scotty not get sick
Please bless we can go to church
Please bless Ryan, Matt and Megan and Shandee can go to Canada
Please bless Adria can grow up big like me.
. . . Normal Closing

Now if that's not a heartfelt prayer of sweetness, I don't know what is. I especially liked that she wanted to see a rainbow. Not because I love rainbows, but because what a simple request. Maybe we should all be praying to see a rainbow in our lives.