March 26 – “Cailyn’s prayer”

Cailyn and I had a regular prayer meeting yesterday.  Well, I don’t know how “regular” it was, but it turned into a prayer meeting nonetheless.  Chris had gone to H & R Block to take care of filing an income tax return on her Mom’s estate.  Quite a confusing task, I might add.  I thought about trying it myself, but one look at the forms on the website changed my mind there.  As it turned out, Chris spent over an hour there wading through all the forms with the guy assigned to work with her.  They finally determined that the tax amount was something like $60.  And the fee for doing the return?  Oh, that was in the neighborhood of $350.  Ouch.

But back to the prayer meeting.  Cailyn and I were having ham sandwiches for lunch.  Our conversation, as usual, had jumped from the meaning of Easter to where she was moving to what kind of birthday party theme she wanted to have when she turned five.  Something happened in our conversation that caused Cailyn to exclaim, “Oh, my God.”  Now there’s something that I learned many years ago, and I decided she was old enough to hear it from me now.  I wasn’t sure if she would be able to grasp it, but I thought I’d give it a try.  I took a deep breath and went right to it.

“Cailyn,” I began, “Are you saying a prayer?”  She looked at me with a blank expression, as if to say something profound like, “Huh?”  I continued on.  “When you say ‘Oh, God’ you are talking to him, like when you say, ‘Hey, DadDad’ you are talking to me.  You just got his attention.  That means the very next thing you say, he will be listening to very closely, because you just started a prayer.”

The wheels inside her little head really started turning then.  “I want to talk to God some more, OK?”

Absolutely.  Maybe this would work.  But she crawled down from the stool she was on and dashed from the room.  Puzzling.  But she tossed back this request: “Come on in here, DadDad.  We have to go pray.”

Now intrigued, I followed her into my office.  She crawled under my desk and invited me to join her.  I did the best I could, still wondering what was going through her mind.

“Now we can talk to God again.  And you can listen to me talk to him, OK?”

Suddenly the whole location thing began to make sense to me.  Sure felt biblical, anyway.  It wasn’t exactly a prayer closet, but I would say it was close enough, don’t you think? 

She began, “Oh my God …  What do I say to him?”

I suggested, “Let’s tell him we love him, because he really loves us.” 

She started over yet again, “Oh my God.  I love you.  Amen.  Now it’s your turn to pray, DadDad.”

I started a prayer of my own, “Father …”  And I was interrupted almost immediately.

“No, DadDad.  You didn’t say it.”  I was confused.  “Didn’t say what?” I queried.

“You didn’t say, ‘Oh my God.’”  Ah, of course.   I began again, properly this time, and expressed my love for God, followed by, “Now it’s your turn again.”  And, oh, did she ever get into the flow of things.  She began – with the proper declaration, of course - and the prayer that followed was one of the most amazing I have ever heard.  She stopped occasionally to let me have a quick turn (as long as I remembered to start properly), but she rapidly picked up the pace on her turns.  Ready for this?

“Oh, my God.  I love you.  I’m sorry you died.  But I’ll see you at Easter, and I hope you come out and say something.  I hope you get an Easter egg.  I love you so much.  I hope I can see Purple.  She’s my favorite fish and she’s in heaven now.  I hope you help me have a wedding and a baby shower and a baby.  Amen.”

Wow.  And Amen.

Matthew 6:6 says, “But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

Father, help me to pray like that.  Real.  Simple.  From my heart.  Amen.