What Happens When Children Pray

 

My youngest son said something from the van's back seat.  As usual with two other children using their outside voices along with the Ipod blaring, I couldn't quite make his words out.

"What did you say, honey?"  I turned off the music and glanced in the rear view mirror just in time to catch a frown before he practically yelled his annoyance at me.

"I was talking to God."

In other words--"Butt out, mommy.  This doesn't involve you."

I felt chastised, but had to smile since this was the third time in a week I had listened to him spontaneously praying in the back seat.

Emerson is turning into my little prayer warrior.

And this mother?  She is learning to turn to him, to all three of my children as prayer support.  When there's nobody I can call at a given moment and ask to pray--just pray--I am learning to stop and ask these little ones to pray when the need arises.

What's more, I am learning to ask them to pray for me.

As we left worship service on Sunday morning, I turned around and asked Emerson to pray for some rain for mommy's plants.  He didn't take a breath before lifting up his petition to the heavens.

A few hours later, our area was hit with a white-out thunderstorm that was so intense, the satellite went out.  His smile lit up the kitchen table when Opa revealed how much the rain gauge reflected--two full inches.  "I prayed for two inches!" he squealed.

This isn't the first time I've seen it happen--a request answered when children pray.

My children don't understand that some people believe prayer is reserved for a private closet or church only.  To them, prayer is the very fabric of their days.  It is something mommy does aloud dozens of times a day--nothing fancy, nothing long, but rather short, simple statements of faith and proclaiming an inability to do it all on her own.

I saw this faith just today reflected in my oldest, Wyatt, as we took the seven minute drive to school where he underwent simple kindergarten testing.

All morning long, he had been telling me, "I'm excited, but I'm still a small bit scared."

When 11:00 came, he buckled himself in the backseat, then repeated the same statement once again before starting to pray out loud.

At the driveway's first curve, Wyatt prayed first for rain, then his prayers soon focused on school, on his fears.  As I drove through yet another rainstorm, I could tell how scared he really was when he prayed the entire trip.

He's never had much to be afraid of in his sheltered life thus far.  In fact, this is the first time he's been somewhere where there wasn't a family member around.

It was uplifting for this mother to know that Wyatt knows how to contact the true comforter when mommy isn't there.

But it made me wonder--what would happen to our world if we called upon all our children to pray for it?  If we didn't leave the "big" prayer requests for the adults, but if we involved our little ones in praying for every request, big and small?

These little ones with faith that many times surpasses our own--what could their prayers do?

If you haven't already, I encourage you to take five minutes and watch this video from Gospel for Asia entitled "The Power of the Meek."  It gives a glimpse at what miracles can be wrought on earth when little children pray.