Prayer

In our hymnal, there is a section designated for Daily Prayer for Individuals and Families.  It follows the Daily Office of Prayer.  In this section, there are suggestions for a pattern of daily/weekly prayer.  I always mean to use these suggestions because they remind me to pray for others or topics I don't normally remember to pray for. 
Along with the kneeler I mentioned in my last post, my husband got an old hymn board from the closed church.  We had been using it in our kitchen to post pictures, but I decided that I'd like to put cards with corresponding pictures to help me (and the rest of our family) be mindful in prayer.  We're in the kitchen often, so I thought we'd be constantly  moved to prayer, especially with how distracting life can be. 

The set of cards on the board today is for Monday.  My hope is that our eldest daughter will help put the cards on in the morning and it will be a chance to talk with her about why we pray for these things and to help her pray for them as well.  This morning, she asked to pray for a loving school (after seeing the card with the school on it).  I'm not an artist by any means, but I pray for these images to move us in love for our neighbor.

I used to say that I only had two prayers:  "Thank you." and "Help."  There are other prayers I want to pray, it just seems that life is so distracting.  I had read an article the other day about how to grow in prayer.  The author suggested that you use a repeated action, throughout the day, to remind you to be in prayer. Since I change so many diapers these days, I thought that would be an oft repeated action, to remind me to be in prayer, especially to be in prayer for our children, for their hearts and attitudes, for their futures and for help in my vocation as their mother.

Lest this post seem like I'm bragging about how righteous or holy we are, let me be the first to say that these are our ideals, but we fail them often.  My hope is that these ideas would be a blessing to you. May you be constant in prayer and know that you are also being prayed FOR.