Morning Prayer

A lot of Most of my good ideas come from watching my friends as they parent or homeschool their own children.

(Which is why I am continually grateful for godly women in my life.  Continually grateful.)

Several of my buddies have a little basket or a magnet stuck to their fridge with pictures of people they know and care about.  It’s their prayer list.  They’ll have the kids help pray for that person throughout the day and a new face is chosen each morning.

I’d never tried anything like that before.

And in the history of Keigley, we haven’t always had predictable mornings with standard routines.

But as our children have run hopping and skipping right out of the toddler and preschool years while I was trying to catch my breath and clean scrambled eggs off the floor, our mornings have grown into much more regular routines.

Generally we are all up and eating breakfast at the same time.  And we’ve been working on beginning our morning with Kevin reading scripture and us working on memorizing a few verses as a family.

(I wish I could say this habit is so easy and effortless.  Goodness – it’s not.)

Earlier this year we added an extra addition to our little breakfast time rituals, inspired by our friends.

I didn’t get around to gathering photos of everyone and I didn’t want that to stop me from taking initiative and simply beginning so instead we just have a list of names.

I wrote down the names of relatives far and near.  (Well, mostly far as we have no relatives near except those residing under our same roof.)  I listed friends and just any people we want to remember to pray for.

The list is on a cute little card stack I received as a gift and each morning we flip the name to the next person.

Piper is our official reminder.

It’s been so good to see names pop up and hear the kids pray for them throughout the day.

Surprisingly, it’s also been a fun opportunity to acquaint the kids with stories about that person – especially when the name that appears is a cousin or a friend whom they have not seen in years.  Throughout the day and at the table we will recall stories about the person and be reminded of ways they have been in our lives and about ways we wish we could be more involved in their lives now.

It’s just a little gesture really – but as in almost every act of thoughtfulness and prayer – the action is as beneficial to us as we would hope it to possibly be for the person for whom we are praying.