Prayer for Children

We pray for children who sneak popsicles before supper,
who erase holes in math workbooks, who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those,who can’t bound down the street in new sneakers,
who never “counted potatoes,”
who are born in places we wouldn’t be caught dead,
who never go to the circus,
who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.

And we pray for those
who never get dessert,
who have no safe blankets to drag behind them,
who watch their parents watch them die,
who don’t have any rooms to clean up,
whose pictures aren’t on anybody’s dresser,
whose monsters are all too real.

We pray for children
who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
who like ghost stories,
who shove dirty clothes under the bed, and never rinse out the tub,
who get visits from the tooth fairy,
who don’t like to be kissed in front of their friends,
who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,
whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those
whose nightmares come in the daytime,
who will eat anything,
who have never seen a dentist,
who aren’t spoiled by anybody,
who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children
who want to be carried and for those who must,
for those we never give up on
and for those who don’t get a second chance.
For those we smother…and for those
who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it. Amen.

Author Unknown
( Prayer Home)

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One thing that really bugs me, Lord,
is the way I get hassled about my room.

So it’s messy. So it’s really messy.
So some creeping thing might appear pretty soon
if I don’t clean under the bed.
So my socks might get up and walk on their own.
It’s my room, Lord! It’s my space!

I like my room, Lord.

It may not always (or hardly ever) look good.
It may not even smell good, but its mine.

Maybe that’s why I get so upset when people
criticize my room, or call it a warehouse,
or say it smells like a locker room.

My room is me, Lord.
That’s what people don’t understand.
Do You understand, Lord? Do You?
Maybe my room is sort of like my life –
I don’t have everything lined up and in order yet
I am still trying to decide what goes where,
and what’s important,
and what I should keep and what I should throw out.

I know, I do need help. It is a mess.
If it’s true that “cleanliness is next to godliness,”
You and I could get a little closer.
I’ll work at it, Lord. Honest. Even I worry about
those sounds I hear from under my bed. Amen.

(Prayer Home)

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