Family Prayers

Prayer is very important to me and I KNOW it is important to pray as a family, but it is definitely one of my challenges.  In any case, lately I have stumbled up on some ideas that ARE REALLY WORKING FOR US!!!  So I thought I'd share.  But first, I want to give a shout out to my good blog-friend, Monica.  A while back she posted about her family's Morning Prayers and I was awed and amazed and inspired (and possibly a little jealous) by what goes on at her house.  In any case, I have prayed and stewed over the notion of family prayers, trying this and that, but this past Advent I have finally struck gold with my clan.

The secret I believe is the candles.  My kids REALLY enjoy having candles lit and even more, blowing them out.  The minute a candle is lit, they are quiet and their full attention is on it.  In addition, knowing they are going to get to blow that candle out keeps their attention on the task at hand.  So, for Advent, they were LOVING the Advent wreath. (especially once we reached the fourth Sunday so they all could blow out a candle - rather than having to take turns - and then even more once we got to Christmas so Mom could blow one out, too!)

For Advent, I put our wreath on a large platter so I can move it from the top of the bookshelf to the table for meals and then back up for "safe-keeping."  Once the Christmas season ended, I put the Advent wreath away, but kept the platter out.  I found four candles and

some green cloth (ok, they are pot holders, but they ARE green for ordinary time) and a nice cross that stands up.  Now I move our "sacred space" from the top of the bookshelf to the table for every meal we eat together (sometimes breakfast, often lunch, and normally dinner every night). 

I found this really neat book called "Prayers for Each and Every day."  It has a morning and evening prayer for each day of the week.  It also has some special prayers in the back.  It is scripturally based with some poems and reflections, too, but in a fairly kid-friendly way.  So we use that and then sometimes we discuss what I read or ask for petitions.  We then conclude with a few prayers from "My First Prayers for my Family" or "Daily Prayers" or another little prayer book of some sort.  The kids like to look at the pictures and my daughter can now read some of the prayers on her own (which she LOVES to do).  Eventually I imagine they will have most of these prayers memorized (as they memorized our Advent and Christmas prayers (from My First Prayers for Christmas, which I highly recommend, by the way).  Then we each blow out a candle.

We, of course, still say our regular blessing of the food before meals (well, I say "regular" but for us, we usually sing it in various ways - such as to the tune of Gilligan's Island, or we chant it - yes, that is one of our favorites - or sometimes we sing the "Johnny Appleseed" grace), but this gives us a bit more opportunity to be prayerful together and if nothing else, I find it to be a great breath of fresh air.  The kids seem to enjoy it as well and I can only hope we are planting seeds during this time to help them grow into spiritual giants, able and willing to following Jesus in whatever He asks of them.

P.S. I really would like to show a picture of our "sacred space" but you can refer to my last post for an update of why that is not possible at this time.  For now these images will have to satisfy my need for visual description.