What do you tell your kids about God? And praying? Anything?
I didn’t learn how to pray until I was 26 and someone taught me this simple skill (and I do look at it as a skill) that changed my life forever. I’d love to teach my kids so they know about it much earlier than I figured it out. Praying can be so incredibly cool and calming. But the prayer I was taught, the only one I do really, seems way too grown up for them.
I was told to get on my knees every single morning and say:
“God,
I am totally powerless over people, places and things and my life is unmanageable. I’ve come to believe a power greater than myself is restoring me to sanity and I’m turning my will and my life over to that power.”
I did not believe a single word of this prayer. Most of the time, I still don’t.
But I was told then: what you believe doesn’t matter. If you want to get better, try getting on your knees and saying this. You’ve tried everything else, and nothing has worked. So, why not this? Is it any stupider than sticking your finger down your throat and making yourself throw up several times a day?
I had to admit, it was not.
I don’t know how praying works or why it works. I don’t even care anymore. All I know is that if something is bothering me or obsessing me, and I get on my knees and ‘turn it over,’ instantly, I feel calmer and happier. Remarkably and paradoxically, I also get the energy and focus to move forward and ‘do the next right thing.’ After praying about how powerless I am, I act. Happens every time.
So I’d like to teach my kids about this because it’s so damn useful.
Also, my seven year old daughter has started to ask me about God. What she’s picked up, somehow, somewhere, just as I did when I was a kid, is that praying is all about asking for stuff. And then if you’re ‘good,’ you get what you asked for.
But the kind of praying I do isn’t like that at all. More like the opposite. Still, those things I say– which as I wrote, I often don’t believe– seem way too heavy to put on a little kid. As is the whole powerless/powerful paradox. I don’t even get it!
I could tell my daughter: just tell God what you’re grateful or thankful for, but that seems sanctimonious, and it’s not what I do either.
Please let me know if your kids have asked you about praying or God, and if you’ve had any luck in teaching them anything. Especially if you don’t know if you believe in God.