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Brown is two years old today. Last night, as I was carrying him from our reading spot in the rocker to his crib, it struck me again what a young boy he is. He has lost much of that baby fat and is beginning to run more like a boy than a toddler. His expressions of his wants and desires are becoming more vehement as are his protests when he is not thrilled with what we are asking him to do. Having a small infant in the house to contrast has been interesting in pointing out just how much development has taken place in the last couple of years. Trying to cradle that 35 pound boy like a baby is laughable, but I will continue to do it in the evening as long as he will let me. Which may be only tomorrow.

Speaking of prayer (nice transition), prayer I think is poorly understood by most people, especially me. We Christians like to sit around, tell each other what we are going to pray about, then begin the prayer as if God wasn’t listening until we directly addressed him. Quite humorous. We don’t generally have altars at which we spend much time on our knees in prayer. I have heard parents of teenagers say that “you will never pray harder than when you have teenagers” and that maybe so. My experience is only with my younger kids, but I would echo the sentiment. Children drive us to prayer. I think it is because we recognize how vulnerable they are, they could so easily get sick, or have and accident, or choose the wrong path, or…or… We see their vulnerability so easily. God must laugh that we see how much prayer we direct at kids because of their obvious need of God’s guidance, but don’t recognize that need in ourselves. So in this way in my life, God seems to be using Brown and Joseay to teach me a course about prayer. Glad He has several years to teach this course as I have much to learn. But through my introductory course, God has shown me that there is no better altar to pray over than a sleeping child. The love, the desire for protection, the recognition of vulnerability drives me to prayer repeatedly.
May the joy of Advent fill our homes as we see again how much a Father can love us through a young child knowing the sacrifice that would be made.