Hope!
My greatest accomplishment to date is teaching my children how to pray. Sure, tying their shoes, brushing their teeth, dressing themselves are all pretty big deals. But what good are all those things if they can't find hope to face each new day.
I believe hope is a cornerstone to producing well rounded, stable adults. And not just hope, but hope in the right things.
One can't place hope into themself, there is nothing but disappointment at the end of that path. Sure, even the most confident and most successful of people might appear to have it all together. But I'm confident that if you ask anyone of them to be honest, they will tell you that they see a litnany of imperfections in themselves. That is the type of false hope that puts bullets in seemingly confident people's brains once they realize they too are human.
You can't place hope in money. After all money is meant to be spent and there always sharks circling to relieve you of yours. That type of hope is fleeting. It is the type of hope that pushes investment bankers off roof tops when the market crashes.
You certainly can't place hope in other people. After all, if you can't trust yourself, what makes you think the person lying next to you is any better. The saying, "It's a thin line between love and hate" didn't just appear out of nowhere. Sometimes those that are closest to you are the ones that do the most damage.
So who or what do you have hope in? For our family, our hope is in God. And to activate that hope we pray.
Practice makes perfect!
For many years my eldest child, Ariana, would not go to sleep unless someone prayed with her. It gave her anxiety to think about going to sleep without a prayer from mommy or daddy. Well this alarmed me. I didn't want my child socially crippled and unable to go to sleep if her mom or dad were not present. So we instituted a pray for yourself policy in the house.
Some might consider this an extreme sense of tough love, but we thought it important for Ari to take ownership of her prayers and activate her faith without our help.
It worked, she prays with such conviction and has taught her brother how to pray for himself.
Prayer for others!
My four-year-old son came to a startling realization. People go to hell. He announced to me, the day after Thanksgiving, that he did not want me to go to hell. I wish you could have seen his face. His eyes were bigger and more serious than normal.
At first I thought, what did I do that caused him such great concern? But I didn't panic. Instead I probed. "Thank you Nate, I don't want to go to hell either."
"Yeah, because I love you and I want you to go to heaven with the rest of us!"
"I'm glad you think you're going to heaven Nate, and I am so happy the rest of us are coming along too," I said in amusement.
Then he said to me something that I will cherish. He told me that he wants God to heal me.
Lately I have been struggling physically. Some days I am perfectly fine, and other days I am extremely fatigued. I have had a battery of tests and every one, thankfully, has come back fine. In fact, according to the doctors I am perfectly healthy. So all I can do at this point is take things easy, eat right, exercise (as best I can), and pray. Apparently, Nate has been watching.
I told Nate that I would appreciate his continued prayers for mommy's health. And, he obliged.
"Dear God, thank you for your mercy and grace. Pray that you watch over my mommy, and ....heal her body so she won't be sick....and protect her from zombies and monsters in hell.....and pray for my mommy, my sister, my daddy, my uncle John, my grandma, my grandma in Kentucky, my grandpa, and my grandpa in Kentucky, and neighbors, and doggies and everyone.....In Jesus' name. AMEN."
With a big smile I thanked Nate and gave him a big hug.
Later that same evening, Nate runs into my room and proclaims, "Ariana wants me to pray for her so she won't be sick." The kids have been battling flu and cold symptoms this holiday season.
I responded, "Then pray!"
I caught him on tape (maybe I'll post it), he prayed over Ariana. He prayed for her health and of course to protect her from zombies in hell.
Lesson learned!
I learned during these magnificent moments with Nate and Ariana, how much they rely on God to deal with the issues they can't deal with.
As adults we try to manage our lives and the lives of our dependents. However here is a perfect example of Jesus' teaching, "Verily I say unto you, Except you be converted, and become as little children, you shall not enter into the kingdon of heaven." Matthew 18:3
