My First Written Prayer
1973–Sunday School St.Stephen UMC, Mesquite, Texas
My first prayer was the one everybody knows,
“Now I lay me down to sleep…”
I said it so many times I could probably say it backwards in my sleep.
The second prayer I learned was about food—
“God is great, God is good…”
We’d fold our hands at the table and race through the words before the food got cold.
Then came the big one, the prayer Jesus taught us Himself.
The Lord’s Prayer.
That one feels different,
like it carries the weight of the whole church inside it.
It’s not just words you repeat,
it’s a prayer that feels like it keeps on praying long after you’ve finished.
But there’s one prayer I can’t forget.
Not because someone else gave it to me,
but because I wrote it myself.
It was in Sunday School,
the teacher told us to take a scripture and use it to make our own prayer.
Most kids went for short verses.
I picked a looong one, Ecclesiastes chapter 3—
the one about seasons
“To everything there is a season,
and a time to every purpose under heaven.”
I didn’t understand all of it then,
but I knew enough to feel the truth in it.
That there’s a time to laugh and a time to cry,
a time to plant and a time to pick up what’s been planted,
a time to be silent and a time to speak.
So I wrote.
“Dear God, help me not be afraid of the seasons You give. When it’s time to laugh, don’t let me hold back my joy. When it’s time to cry, let me cry honest tears and not pretend I’m fine. When it’s time to plant, help me sow kindness, even if I can’t see it grow yet.
When it’s time to be silent, help me listen. And when it’s time to speak, give me courage to say what matters.
Amen.”
I didn’t know it then,
but I was planting my own seed that day.
And the funny thing is—
I still pray that same prayer now,
like a gazillion times.
Comments
Post a Comment