Prayer...

I realized something today. Our kids are only with us for a short time and then they’re gone. This picture is around 10 years old. Halee with her aunts and cousins. Three are married and one is engaged. I’m starting to recognize more than ever the need to teach my children what to do to have real happiness. Tonight while I was saying my prayers before bed grace noticed how long my prayer was. I pray for like a full 5 minutes every night and that may not sound like a lot but if you time it you’ll see it’s a really long time. I don’t do it to look good either...I do it because I have a lot of people I pray for and mostly because I’m a little bit of a worrier so I turn to Heavenly Father for the stuff I cannot control. I went through the list of people and things I pray for just so she’d understand what was taking so long. She seemed super interested in what I had to say to Heavenly Father. It made me realize that little conversations like these are crucial little lifelines in helping our kids to understand the meaning of life and the joy you can get out of it. I make a lot of errors in parenting. Mostly I’m not vigilant in matters like this and I need wake up calls to remind me because I get comfortable and I forget. But thankfully I pray again each night and Heavenly Father remembers that one thing I pray for is being a better mom...and that my kids will know they are his children. There are so many hopes I have for my children and their children and so on. I still have time to teach but not much...and then they’ll be gone. Now is the time.