A Child's Prayer

When there's a lull in the conversation, we always resort to the same topic: funny Joey stories. Everyone does it: me, Brian, our parents, Isabel, my neighbors, my friends. Everyone's got a story about Joey. Because the kid is a crack-up!

So with nothing to blog about today, I resort to funny Joey stories, and although there are a million to talk about, I'm going to tell you about how much this kid loves to pray. He believes that prayers should be really long, so he makes it a point to ramble and repeat himself until he feels like he's used up enough time to impress us all. And impress us he does.
This past Sunday he volunteered to give the opening prayer in church. He was so excited about it all week. He reminded us all week about it, and during sacrament meeting he could hardly sit still. He kept asking, "Is it time for me to give the prayer yet? Don't forget I get to say the prayer in primary today!"



When the time came, he ran up to the front and took his seat in front of everyone, beaming from ear to ear. I walked up and asked him if he needed any help, and he told me no, he was going to do it all by himself, so I walked to the back and sat down to watch.



I love to listen to Joey pray. He is so serious and says such wonderful, heartfelt things. But he also says some hilarious things during his ramblings to try and make his prayers long. During this particular prayer on Sunday he blessed all of the prophets he could remember, and blessed everyone to be good during primary (a great thing to pray for!), that everyone would have a good day and a good summer (I think he said this 3 times as he ran out of things to say and began repeating himself), that everyone would want to go on a mission when they got older (*sigh*--what a sweet kid), that we'd get to do lots of fun activities with our families this summer, and ended with a sincere plea that all of the children could get really good presents for Christmas this year.

By the time the prayer was over most of the teachers eyes were open and they were all snickering. I know this because by now my eyes were open and I was snickering too.

Joey was proud as could be (as was his mother) and he walked straight past his teacher to where I was sitting at the back, gave me a hug, and whispered, "It's really important to get good Christmas presents," then returned to sit with his teacher.

Man, I love that kid.

Whenever it's time to pray for a meal or at bedtime, Joey always tries to convince us that it's his turn. "Remember, Mom, I say the best prayers."

I think he's probably right.