My husband and I serve on the baptism prep ministry at our church. Parents on the ministry team are asked to share why we raise our kids in the faith and ways in which we practice our faith at home. During our class this month, a theme emerged among our team members. We’ve all done the same thing with our kids since they were babies. We pray.
During our class, our deacon will typically talk about the meaning of the sacrament, its origin in the bible and what will happen on baptism day. He shared something in this month’s class that I already “knew,” but all of a sudden I came to “understand.” It’s important to pay attention to those subtle shifts in learning. We might know something for a very long time before we come to understand it. (That thought also applies to people, but that’s a topic for another time.)
The deacon was telling a story about the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan River. I already knew that when Jesus asked John to baptize him, that John hesitated and said to the Lord, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”[1] Matt 3:14 John knew that Jesus didn’t NEED to be baptized. But Jesus instructed him to do it anyway. Jesus set an example for us here. I’ve heard it before, but finally it hit me. He showed us what to do by actually doing it. And that’s how we on the team are teaching our kids to pray. We actually pray together with them at home. They not only see us do it, but they live it together with us.
I have a friend who finally tried to bring her 13 year old to church. She had never taken her daughter to church before or prayed with her. My friend grew up going to church and seeing her own parents pray. But she and her husband simply never developed the habit with their kids. Now, her daughter refused to go to church. Her daughter didn’t understand what the urgency was after all this time. Why suddenly did her mom want God in their lives? My friend realized that in a few short years, her daughter would be out of the house, away at college and she was nervous. Who or what would she turn to for comfort without her parents there?
Was my friend too late? No. It’s never too late to start. But a powerful tool like prayer does take some time and practice. Understanding that there’s a higher power that I can turn to in times of need, bringing myself to a quiet place in the chaos, centering my mind, and speaking and naming my burdens are all part of the process. And just like brushing teeth, we need to show our kids how to do it over and over before it becomes a habit.
When my daughter was in 5th grade, she was invited to take a standardized test at a learning center. My husband and I decided it would be a good thing for her to do. Timed tests freaked her out and although she was a good student, standardized tests just weren’t her thing. We thought that the practice would be helpful. My husband and I drove her to the testing center. When we pulled into the parking lot we realized that she was completely overcome with anxiety.
“Don’t worry,” we told her, “it’s just for practice.”
“Will you pray with me?” she asked.
We had at this point, prayed together hundreds of times as a family. This was the very first time that she asked for prayer in a stressful situation. How many times had she used it on her own before that moment? How many times has she used it since? In a society plagued by anxiety, we need to give our kids tools for survival. Prayer is an awesome tool.
As it turns out, prayer is portable. You can bring it with you into stressful situations, times of joy and moments of pain. And for our kids, they can take it out into the world and always have it with them, even when we’re not there. They are much more apt to use it, if it’s a habit and they’ve already experienced the comfort and reassurance that it provides. And so we follow the example of the Ultimate Teacher and show our kids how to pray by actually praying with them. We pray at dinner together. We pray before bed. They hear us lay it down before a stressful day, or offer it up for a friend that’s hurting. It doesn’t always look pretty, and sometimes it’s downright gritty. (“Why God?” is one of my favorites.) But we do our best. And we pray.
For creative ideas on praying with children in the classroom, check out https://www.contemplativespirit.org/praying-with-kids/
[1] The Didache Bible, Ignatius Press, San Francisco, CA, 2015, p 1263.
