Evening Prayers

Eight o'clock in the Wilcox home. One bed. One Bible story book. One Daddy. One Mama. Two kiddos. Time to pray before bed. And so it goes...

Daddy: Dear Father, thank You so much for...
Meg: (loudly, to Matthew) HI!
Mommy: Sweetie, we're talking to God now, okay?
Daddy: Yeah, can you talk to God too, Meg? Say, "Hi, God."
Meg: Hiiii, Dog!
Daddy: Say, I love you, God.
Meg: I luuuuuuh Gah... duck! (pointing to the appliqué on Matthew's sleeper)
Daddy: Yup, that's a duck. God, we thank you for so much for this chance to pray together as a family.
Meg: No, no, no! (This in response to Matthew, who is not quite responding to her attempts to hold his hand)
Daddy: It's okay, Meg.
Mommy: Matthew doesn't know how to hold hands, Sweetie. He's too little.
Daddy: And Father, we thank you for...

Note: Meg was not being irreverent by saying "Dog" when we asked her to talk to God. She just gets confused like that. In her vocab, "doggies" are "god-ies", so it only makes sense that God ends up getting switched around too sometimes. Good thing the Lord sees the heart!

At any rate, you get the idea. At that pace, it takes a while to get through a prayer, as you can probably imagine. But we wouldn't want it any other way. How kind of God to make up this wonderful thing that we call the family.