I Watched My Mom and Dad Pray

I watched my Mom and Dad pray.
Some kids grow up remembering the fights their parents had, the places their parents always wanted to go, the baby-sitters their parents always called for them so that they could go out, the late nights before parents would come home from work, or the disappointment they felt when parents weren't available to see them in a play or game at school. Some kids grow up remembering parents who went to church every Sunday, but left their Christianity at the door of the church, and some grow up remembering parents who never wanted anything to do with that 'God-stuff' and the hypocrites who gave away their wealth when times were hard, some kids even grow up remembering parents who had nothing at all to do with faith or a faith community . . . earning a living was tough enough, nobody cared what you believed. Some kids grow up remembering very little of their parents . . . what their parents did, what they believed, what they hoped, what they wanted . . . either because their parents were never there or their parents just thought those were things you had to find out for yourself.
I watched my Mom and Dad pray.
Prayer was always a powerful part of our family journey. Not just the Sunday morning 'in church' type of prayers, and not just the gathered around the dining room table or on the side of the bed at night types of prayers, lived prayers were part and parcel of what I observed in my Mom and Dad nearly every day. Dad always listened to KMOX radio in the morning while we milked cows and, as the "Lord's Prayer" was sung, things in the barn sort of came to a stop. The same thing would happen as Dad started to work in the fields, or tend to the cattle, or just take a walk along the field roads . . . I have vivid recollections of him just stopping in silence and just looking up. I knew what he was doing, I didn't need to be told. There was a conversation going on of which I was a blessed observer . . . God and Dad just talking things over. All this doesn't mean that Dad didn't get upset with me or my brothers when we screwed up, or didn't get frustrated when things on the farm didn't go well, or didn't worry when the Summer sun was hot and the crop prices were down . . . but all that happened in the context of Dad's continual prayers.
Similarly with Mom, my sainted Mother of four boys, who was also blessed to have both, her Dad and my Dad's Dad, live with us for several years as we boys were growing up. Mom was consistently outnumbered, which may explain why she played the organ in church each Sunday for over thirty years . . . that was the one place she would sit by herself and talk with God without some male voice saying, "Mom!" or "Virginia!" Mom, much like Dad, would pause while hanging the laundry, would stop while hoeing in the garden, would play the piano or organ in our home and pause on particular chords, or would just sit on the front porch on the swing in the evening and be quiet. Prayer was the foundation upon which everything else was built which, in retrospect, may explain much about why Mom took so many pictures with her camera . . . and why so many of them were of nature: she just loved to 'be' with God.
I watched my Mom and Dad pray.
People are constantly doing studies as to why people do what they do and why our nation is struggling and why values seem to be slipping and why . . . and why . . . and why . . . well, you get the picture. Maybe we just need to spend a little less time studying all our struggles and more time modeling what matters. I don't know that Mom or Dad ever made a conscious decision to behave in certain ways so that their children would turn out thus and so, but I do believe that Mom and Dad exemplified in life what they believed in their souls, for of such they had been taught by their parents and in such they found great strength and peace.
I watched my Mom and Dad pray ~ and it made all the difference.