Prayers

Updated : I have a set of Prayer before bedtime over here.

Long before I turn to Christianity, I have that notions that Christians will kneel by their beds and say prayers before sleeping. This is due to the constant images I see on TV and even in children’s story books.

Then, when I first turn to Christianity, a very staunch Catholic woman told me she has a room just for her prayers and the way she described it, it was almost like an altar. She told me she spent a few hours each day on prayers.

Well, all those gave me the idea that it is how Christians pray. At one point, I do have the house to myself because I haven’t gave birth to my 5th baby. But that was just a short time. Then, baby came along, I got baptised and I admit I have never pray in such manner before.

Who has the time to say the rosary with a newborn baby needing breastmilk 24/7? Who can afford time to pray when there are three other older children needing meals and some love? So, the only time I have for Jesus is the few minutes I take to flip through the Bible, pause to think and reflect and got on with daily routines.

I do wish I can postulate by my bedside and totally surrender myself in prayers. But that is not comfortable for me because my husband doesn’t subscribe to the same faith. So, what I normally do is to cuddle with my little boy and say a quick prayer of thanksgiving and ask for God’s protection and blessing when we are lying down in bed.

To me the only time I have is in the morning when I wake up. Usually, I will read through a few verses and chapters of the Bible, think how it connects with our every day life and find some inspiration and motivating factors from those verses.

Of course, I do dream of the day when all of us in the family will devote ourselves to pray in the manner where ‘2 or 3 come together in my name, I will be there’ kind of way. Until then, the most is my reminders to my older children who sleep in their own rooms to “Hey, remember to say a little prayer for your exam/etc” before you go to sleep.

And my wish is for Christians to have a better understanding and empathise with families like mine where we are not completely, 100% ‘Christian’. Sometimes, I get comments that implied I am not doing enough and suggestions like what I should be doing. That just grates on my conscience and yet, I don’t have the guts to remind them that I am not born into a Catholic family, married to a Catholic so I cannot morph into one just like that. Give me space and time and we will get there somehow.