November 21, 2016 - It happened at 3:00 this morning. I suddenly woke up and for two hours lay recalling the prayers of friends I have known. When I was four years old, I heard Daddy pray for the first time. Before Bill and I ate our oatmeal, he prayed, “Dear God, make us thankful for these and other blessings. Amen.” He prayed the same identical prayer at every meal as we were growing up.
When I was pastor of The First Baptist Church of Starks, La., 90-year-old Mrs. Ada Berwick always included the words, “Dear Lord, bless the ‘cold and indefinite’ in her prayers. I thought she meant “cold and indifferent”, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that middle-of-the-road “indefinites” need our prayers, too.
Deacon/Music Director T. O. Ellington of FBC, Shelbyville, Texas included the word “desire” in all his prayers. At the conclusion, he’d say, “Dear God we thank you for the ‘desire’ to be here today.” And T.O. was right. It’d really boring to sit in a church service without a desire to be there.
When our twin granddaughters (Zoe and Lundyn) were five years old, Pam and I taught them to pray, “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food. Amen.” When they were spending a week with us one summer, Zoe said, “Meme, can we pray another prayer today? It is different, but it is still to God.“ Then we all held hands and the girls prayed in perfect unison, "But give honor to Christ in your hearts as your Lord; and be ready at any time when you are questioned about the hope which is in you.." 1 Peter 3:15. "We learned it in Bible School last summer", they said. It was difficult for Pam and me to hide the tears of joy in our eyes.
Before going back to sleep, I thanked God for the memory of those prayers…
...And thanked Him for remembering them, too.
