Bournagain

My now 7-year-old son had his birthday this week and as usual put in an exceedingly complicated request for his birthday cake. “Mum, last year I asked for a fighter plane, but you made me a passenger-plane cake (!!). This year can I have a fighter plane?”

Here’s what he ended up with: not just any fighter plane, but a camouflaged stealth bomber!!! Bravo Mum!

Having been a parent for 13 years (we have just become parents of a teenager!), I should have learned a thing or two about prayer for and with my children. Sadly, one of the biggest lessons is that I don’t do it often enough.

You’d think it would just come naturally – I pray on my own, so why not with my kids. But it actually takes practice, perseverance, and a bit of training (for the parent as much as the child). I find it kind of hard to pray with a kid who has been bouncing off the walls only seconds earlier, but I must acknowledge that the problem is mostly in my head. I think of prayer too much as a sober, spiritual activity, and not enough as a natural conversation with the One who knows me more intimately than anyone. I don’t think that Jesus is at all phased by the exuberance of children, so why should I be?

Last night with some friends we prayed for my 6 year old son who has a persistent stutter for which speech therapy has been ineffective. We’ve tried lots of different approaches to help him get over it, but looking back, the times when there has been improvement have been directly linked with times of specific prayer for the problem.

It was really amazing to see how my son responded. Read the rest of this entry »