The Power of Prayer

I have never been one to pray before meals. Grace's name did NOT come into my mind because of saying "grace" before piling the potatoes on my plate, although in retrospect maybe it was subliminal and a sneaky ploy by God to get me to start doing it.

Grace, the girl not the prayer, is the one that has gotten us as a family into the habit of saying a blessing or prayer before meals. Usually it's the same short verse she learned at First Kids which it took a while to really figure out because of her speech at the time. She started making us say it from the time she could talk.

It goes: Come Lord Jesus, be our guest, with this food, us be blessed. Amen.

Last week one night as we were sitting down to dinner with the television tuned into the news (yes we are that family despite knowing better), they were updating the story of the little girl who was abducted and later found ALIVE and well and returned to her family in St. Louis. Now THAT was a blessing. We talked with Grace about how never to go with strangers despite their sneaky tricks; puppies, your Mom said you could etc. and then they told the story of ANOTHER little four year old suddenly missing in Eureka Springs. I told Grace we should say a prayer for his fast and healthy return. We did.

Not ten minutes later they had "breaking news" and said that the little boy had been FOUND and returned alive and well.

Grace asked if it was because we prayed.

We told her that probably LOTS of people were praying, but it certainly hadn't hurt.

It's not often you get immediate results like that.

I could learn to like it.