Wednesday, January 6, 2010

The simplicity of childhood faith......

I just started reading a book called Eat, Pray, Love. One of my New Years resolutions is to read more books in 2010. Reading for me is something I do in phases, sometimes I read voraciously two to three books in a month, other times I can go six months not reading so much as a magazine. I have been in a dry spell with reading lately and decided to remedy this in 2010. But here I go off subject again. Anyway, this book is about one woman's journey to find herself I guess you could say, and to find a relationship with God. While reading tonight I was reminded of an incident with Miss Priss that happened a few years ago. I actually think of this incident a lot. I don't like to talk about my faith a lot (not because I am embarrassed by it in any way, but more so because of the fact that I am not a member of any one kind of organized religion. I am more of a Cafeteria Christian so to speak, I take little bits of different faiths and go with it in my own way) So because of this I don't feel like I have the knowledge or ability to share religion or my feelings about God with others because I have nothing to back it up other than what I know to be true in my heart. However, I want to share this incident that happened with Miss Priss because 1. you know this blog is like a journal for me and 2. because for me it was such a light bulb moment that maybe you will get something out of it too.

Finally, The story:

About four years ago when Miss Priss was about 8 she accidently left a wet wash cloth on the top of the TV in her bedroom. (I am one of those bad Mom's that lets her children have a TV in their rooms. So after several hours on the TV the water seeped into the TV and it stopped working. I was very upset with her and explained how she had to take better care of her things. I told her that she would have to wait a long time to get another TV because they were expensive and so on and so forth. Well, of course she was very upset and there were tears and she asked if maybe the TV would work in a couple of days after it dried out a bit. I told her that was possible and we would just have to wait and see. Sure enough after a couple of days the TV came back on. When it did she looked at me with a big smile on her face and said "I prayed to God to fix the TV and he answered my prayer Mommy" My first instinct at this comment was to explain to her that there were so many more important things to pray for, families dealing with tragedies, sick children, national disasters. Then I realized how wonderful it was that at 8 years old she was turning to God in prayer with her worries and concerns. While her worries and concerns were trivial in my oppinion compared to what was going on in the world they were important TO HER and SHE was and is important to God. I learned a lesson that day. I have always said I want to have a close relationship with God. I have close relationships with the people in my life by communicating with them all the time. I think of my family and close friends, I share everything with them and never worry for a second that it may be to trivial or not important enough for them to listen to me. I strive to be there for them too because I love them and want to help them in anyway that I can. I learned that day that I need to turn to the Lord in prayer about every thing in my life and pray even harder for those who are struggling with tragedy or hardships. Prayer should be simple and easy like a conversation with a loved one. We should all have the faith of a child, faith that if we have a trouble or concern we just need to pray about it because it will be OK.........

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