Incoherent Ramblings...

It was prayer meeting tonight, and again we went with the intention of sitting through it. I know Pookie is still young, but I have been doing the same thing with her each week, to get her adjusted to sitting still.

When we get there, she can play a bit (if we are early) and then when prayer starts, she sits on one of our laps. The older kids all sit through it now, I really want them to know that prayer isn't boring and that they can be a part of it, even if they don't say anything out loud yet...

Then when Pooky starts to fuss, I stand up and walk with her. I whisper songs in her ear, try to keep her from screaming cause she wants to walk around. Then when she does eventually start to scream, I take her out into the baby room. We sit in the rocker and just rock. I sing to her or we pray in there. She is sitting on my lap the whole time, no playing or running around.

She sat really well tonight. When I said the word pray I showed her to fold her hands...she just covers her eyes instead, which is really cute!! We thanked God for the flowers and for apples and bananas, we prayed for the health and safety of our family. We prayed for our friends and thanked God for them as well. She covered her eyes the whole time I prayed out loud!! She is starting to understand the concept. So, now we just have to move it to the big people prayer time. It will be a bit harder for her to sit (she loves the rocking chair!) with others out there, but it will be worth it (I hope;-).

I hear so many kids say how boring prayer meeting is and how they fall asleep during it (Princess has said this on many occasions)...sitting in the room with Pookie tonight a thought just popped into my head...if prayer is boring, then maybe I am not encouraging them enough at home, to make prayer a regular occurance.

This has been the year for me to learn more about who I am in Christ and I think that God spoke to me tonight and told me that I need to help my kids see it now. I know that they will eventually make their own choices down the road. I am not going to be able to control them forever, they may make silly choices. I want to lay a foundation now, so they can pray and think twice before they do something. For me to spend the first 5 years on behaviour issues in church means that I hopefully won't have to deal with it after that. I have only given up a part of my life for that...I want to be there when they need me to help them with the tough decisions, and if we are still dealing with behavioural issues, then there won't be enough time (or inner strength) for us to handle it all.

I don't know if this is making any sense or not, but it is totally on my mind. Sometimes I feel like the odd one out, I feel like a "mean" mom. I don't let my kids play and run around when the others are, I expect them to sit, even if they don't want to. I really feel that, for us, church should be a "family experience". I just hope that one day I will see the fruit from all this and know that I did good...

I also wish that there was just one big book that I could look it all up in and know that the choices I make as a parent are the right ones and then I wouldn't have to worry about making the wrong choices;-)

Goodnight...