Today is the National Day of Prayer. Our church has a tradition of having a simple box lunch on this day so that all who want to can take their lunch hour to join others in prayer. It's a wonderful event, very low key, very informal, and still very nice. I was a little nervous for a couple of reasons. First of all any time I know there is a good chance I'll have to pray out loud I get a little nervous. Second, JD has learned to take his clothes off and does so whenever the mood strikes him. I'm picturing him striping down, breaking out of child care, and running through the lunch. Realistically I know this won't happen, but still the thought has crossed my mind. I got seated and started to relax with the other women at my table when one of the women says "I noticed your son has no pants on". I just knew she was talking to me, but she wasn't. She was talking to the daughter of one of the ministers on staff. Apparently, her son is in the home stretch of potty training. All he has left to work on is his aim. After wetting down the bathroom and his pants, his mom realized that the diaper bag was down the hall. She tried to sneak out and grab a new diaper, which her son took as his cue to make a break for it. He ran through the church office displaying all God gave him for the ladies who work there. It is one of those embrassing stories that we will all be sure to retell at his wedding reception one day. All I could think was "Thank God, it wasn't my child...this time."
While I've got your eye and since it is the National Day of Prayer, I'd like to remind you to pray for our country, it's leaders (even the ones you don't like), the military, and anyone else who service our great nation.
By the way, I did get asked to pray. I was assigned to pray for our Congress and the things they face as they head back to work at the end of the month, including the budget and immigration. I used my dad's advice and prayed silently before I opened my mouth and everything came out fine. I hear the more you do it the easier it gets. I hope that is true.
