Pray Like Piper

I pray.

Really. I do.

I mean, you already know that I pray at least once a day - right?

But recently I realized that my two year old daughter had something new to teach me about prayer.

How do I approach prayer?

With joy? With enthusiasm? As if it is, in fact, a privilege or the exact highlight of my day?

In a group setting, when someone offers a blanket opportunity for prayer, do I get excited?

Or do I avert my eyes a bit?

Are my prayers mostly pretty rhetoric? Or only pleas for some quick relief?

Because that's not how Piper Finnian prays.

No ma'am.

Every night at dinner we ask one child to pray before we eat. And every night at dinner, after that one child has prayed for every family member, every food item and every stranger we passed on the sidewalk that day, we're all ready to dig in.

But Piper isn't.

Her busy little hands are clasped and momentarily still and as soon as the "amen" is uttered by her sibling, she shouts, "May I pray?"

Who would say no?

And every night when we say, "Yes, Piper. You may.", she squeals with delight "Hooray!"

That's how I want to feel about prayer.