Bedtime Prayers

At bedtime I ask both of the older kids to choose a song about God to sing after we pray. It’s our way, after prayer, to say “thank you” for all He has done for us or to remember His love and care when things are difficult.

Sometimes though the kids get in a rut and choose the same two or three songs over and over. In those times either I choose or ask the kids to pick something else.

Tonight Micah had a song to offer: “I made it up!” he exclaimed. “It’s ‘Don’t Punch God–He’s the Good Guy,’ and it’s a night-night song!” And he was dead serious.

It’s times like these I recommend we pick another one.

I use the ‘I-don’t-know-that-one-let’s-sing-something-Mommy-knows-too’  line.

Sometimes it’s all I can do to keep from guffawing.

On a more somber note, I asked the kids to pray with me for the Iranian pastor who is jailed and facing possible execution for his refusal to renounce his faith in God. Mara seemed to understand (Micah not at all) but I told Mara that God could choose to change the bad men’s hearts and allow him to be freed from jail. But if not, God promises that He will walk beside this man right there in jail. That He will be with him, no matter what happens to him.

“It’s like the Fighter Verses say,” Mara agreed. “‘When you walk through the fire, I will be with you,'” she quoted from Isaiah. “That’s the hard times.”

That’s right, Mara! I was so thankful that she understood the verse, and remembered, and applied it to a life situation.

Well, we prayed, and after the prayer, she looked at me with the most sincere expression. With slow, deliberate, measured words she asked: “Do you know what? I love God”–and her eyes told me that she wanted to find the most perfect metaphor for her heartfelt expression–“as much as I love . . . syrup.” She almost whispered and with such intensity. Right up until the word ‘syrup,’ I thought she was about to declare her willingness to be martyred too!

Mara tried to explain: “Because syrup is . . . the sweetest. . . sweetest thing. . . And that’s how God is.”

At least she knows He is sweet. And at least Micah knows He is the good guy.

We may have a long way to go, but I guess we’re heading in the right direction.