Parents Prayers

Prayers of My Parents Written on Index Cards

Relics & heirlooms

Direct our paths

6/6/06 Our Heavenly Father, thank you for the rest of the night, for the beauty and opportunities of this day. Guide and direct our actions this day – help us to be better listeners – to be more tolerant and patient with others and to be more willing to forgive those we need to forgive.  Amen

Guided paths. Directed sunbeams. I love watching how the morning  sun lights up different things in its path. Yes, I loved the Indiana Jones movie with him attaching the crystal to a specific height staff on a specific day to light up the map room location of the ark of the covenant’s resting site.

Abu Simbel is a real artifact that demonstrates the mathematical capabilities and building expertise of the ancients. What if every house that was built took the angles of the sun into mind, carefully focusing light on doorways or a single chip of stained glass in the doorways?

Really! How did they do this? Without CAD, without calculators, without Google, without Home Depot? Aliens?

My daily actions are not so grandiose, but my paths are directed and the object the SON of God is focusing my attention on are His paths for me. He has already made the calculations. He knows the cost. I just get to be Indiana Jones’ accomplice…please God, I hate snakes, too, but his girlfriend Marion did have a nice dress.

To pause more often

5/30/06 Our Father in Heaven, Hear again our thanks for life and health & our daily bread. Continue to remind us of your Grace and prayers answered. Remind us too – to pause more often – to remember and honor those who have served this nation and to reach out to those who mourn. Amen

To pause more often is necessary when I cut my grass. I am not quick, nor am I very strong. I push through it using my push mower. The low tech solution to landscaping fits me right now. I am guaranteed at least 2 hours cutting, without benefit of gasoline power, my city lawn.

I take plenty of pauses, otherwise I might keel over. It is strangely comforting to do things in an old fashioned manner. Gaps between neighbors got bigger as yards grew in direct proportion to the ease with which we could cut our grass.

Like baking bread, using Mom’s old ceramic bowl to mix, and then let rise, I am reconnected to my roots.

It is good to reconnect. Wish me luck cutting.

Our roles

5/18/04 Our Father in heaven we come again troubled and anxious about violence and our role as a nation in terms of world peace.

Sustain and support the leadership of all nations that labor on behalf of peace and help each of us here to increase our understanding and acceptance of others. Amen

Am I troubled and anxious about something as well as my role in the something? Too often, social media blasts out the former and leaves out the latter. Do my social media contributions do the same?

This photo captures Dad’s prayer at Exchange Club in front of a teapot I brought back for Mom from Denmark. In the far back is an old breadboard from Germany. I don’t recall either piece ever being utilized for their designed role. The teapot was in a cupboard display, the breadboard hung on a wall. Attractive, but not what the maker intended.

My Maker intended more for me than decoration to the world. At this age, the decorations seem more appropriate for the end of October, but then, that is another rabbit trail.

Thanks for others sacrifices

5/10/05 Our Heavenly Father, we pause again and give You our thanks for this hour – for nourishment received and our fellowship with each other. More importantly we thank you for the freedoms we enjoy & the sacrifices of those who made our freedom possible. Sustain and guide each of us in our pursuit of Peace. Amen

The sacrifices of those that came before us, today’s focus in my thoughts, thanks to this prayer. All the little knickknacks scattered around my house speak to this fact.

My “Paul Revere collection” reminds me of the enormity and improbability of the task that our forefathers decided to embark on. It didn’t start out that way, events happened and the path was altered, irrevocably. Look what they accomplished.

“You can do this,” my Paul Revere ghost speaks today.

Our country seems to be broken, if you believe the news. We know better.

“We got this.”

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