For February 8th:

 “And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. “ 

Ephesians 6:18: (NIV)

It started out simply enough. “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food, Amen.” When our children were small, we taught them, as a foundation for their prayer life, to give thanks at mealtimes.  They complied, and they were SO cute.

Through the years, their prayers at the table evolved from rote and monotonous into chummy conversations with God, their “buddy” – “Hey, God…thanks for this awesome day” then, to more self-centered, vending machine-type prayers. “Please help me on my algebra test…oh, and thank you for this food. “ Good prayers – important to God – but somehow, still routine. So I got crafty.

I painted an old corkboard to match my kitchen – and christened it the “Prayer Board”. We pinned up pictures of people we were already praying for – our niece going off to college, a friend at work who was sick, a deployed soldier we knew. Before dinner, we share updates about someone on the board, then lift them up specifically in our thanksgiving to God each night.

The faces on the board are always changing. Now our prayer time at the table has a meaningful, outward focus. We thank God for his goodness to us and to those all around us. And when people ask me to pray for them, I ask if I can take their picture for our “Prayer Board”. No one has refused yet!

Stephanie Pearson