Every night my wife puts our daughter to bed and, together, they say their prayers.
Lately, whenever I put her to bed, Evelyn has started saying "Again" after her prayers when I put her to bed. So, typically, I'll just say another prayer. The other night, however, when Jennifer was putting her to bed and Evie said "again" my wife had her say her own prayers. It went something like this:
She folded her hands, closed her eyes, and said, "Dear Lord, Amen."
Maybe I sound arrogant, maybe I'm biased, but I like to think that God heard that and completely understood and loved that prayer more than anything else he had heard that night.
Unless some other guy's kid somewhere did something similar. I bet God liked that, too.
I'm sure some cynic will point out that Evie is only two and probably doesn't understand what she was saying, or Who she was talking to. Maybe that is true. Perhaps this is just the ramblings of a proud Christian dad going on about his daughter repeating something she saw.
Kids do that, you know. They copy us.
There are kids out there who say things their parents say, do things their parents do, and think a certain way because their parents think that way. Just the other night at work I heard a kid who couldn't have been older than five swearing at his little brother and calling him stupid. The brother had to have been around three or four years old. I have no idea what the younger brother did to deserve such a verbal lashing, but I saw the root of it as we walked up to the house next door.
Upon seeing us, the mother came out and began swearing at the kids and telling them to get inside the house. The older brother said something in return and the mother said, "Boy, stop acting stupid and get in here." [I edited that a little because I don't use the language she used]
So yeah, be cynical if you want, but I would rather my kid copy us praying and believe it meant something rather than my kid copy something else... less desirable.
