Praying

Drew is growing up.  I love it and hate it all at the same time.

He has had a few sweet moments lately - one that made me laugh, another that surprised and impressed me, and a third that made me cry.

1) As we walked to the van after I picked him up at school last Monday, he said, "I haven't found a new friend yet."  So we talked just a bit about how school just started and that it was okay to not have a best friend yet.  He was still meeting all of his new classmates and that it might take a few days to figure out who he liked to play with.  On Tuesday night, during our bedtime prayers, he wanted to pray for a new friend at school, but "I want a boy friend, not a girl friend." 

2)  When Drew was much younger and we first introduced praying to him, it was in the form of the "Now I Lay Me" bedtime prayers.  As he's grown older, we've started to introduce the concept that prayer is a way to communicate with God.  Right now we are trying to teach both boys that it's important we thank God for all of our blessings, and also that we can ask God for help.  This apparently has made Drew really think and begin to ask a lot of questions: "How does God hear us?  How does he know it's me?  When can I talk to Him?" and so many others.  The other day he asked me "Is Jesus in the world?  Or out of the world?"  My response was honest and concise: "Go ask your Daddy."

3) And then tonight.  Drew went to bed with a glow stick.  Five minutes after we tuck him in, we hear this shriek followed by screaming and crying.  Drew had cracked the glow stick and, he says, got some of the "water" in his eye.  While we're comforting him in the hallway, flushing his eye with a cold washcloth and holding him close, he starts talking through his tears:  "I shouldn't have brought that to bed with me.  I shouldn't have cracked it open." and on and on and on. (Why isn't he this remorseful when he really does do something wrong?!?!)  We tried to reassure him that it was just an accident and that he'll be okay.  He just kept babbling on, so Brad prayed for him, that God would wrap His arms around Drew so that Drew would know he was there, and make his eye all better.  A few minutes later Drew says, "Daddy, ask God to fix it fast so that I can go back to sleep."  The sheer innocence and total confidence in his request took my breath away.  Drew remembered that he could ask God for anything.  His faith is beginning to form, and Brad and I get to witness it.  I love that.