Book of Mormon: Day 172: Prayers -

Today’s Reading: Alma 10:14-11:4

22 Yea, and I say unto you that if it were not for the prayers of the righteous, who are now in the land, that ye would even now be visited with utter destruction; yet it would not be by flood, as were the people in the days of Noah, but it would be by famine, and by pestilence, and the sword.

23 But it is by the prayers of the righteous that ye are spared; now therefore, if ye will cast out the righteous from among you then will not the Lord stay his hand; but in his fierce anger he will come out against you; then ye shall be smitten by famine, and by pestilence, and by the sword; and the time is soon at hand except ye repent.

I love to pray. From the time I get up in the morning till I fall asleep at night I have a constant prayer going in my mind and in my heart. I am a momma to two beautiful kiddos, 5 months and 3 years, and some days it takes everything in me not to scream and cry and hide. Those are the days that I pray the most. Those are the days that I am grateful for prayers and the opportunity we have to communicate with our Father in Heaven. He created me and my children and He knows what I need to do to help them and to help myself.

In the last several months I have been blessed to receive answers to prayers in ways that I have never experienced before. Prayers shouldn’t be just a postcard or a script we repeat every night. Although sometimes it’s easier to say the same things over and over again when we’re tired. Prayer is a way to receive guidance and inspiration in any aspect of our lives.

Five months ago, I gave birth to our daughter at home. We had two amazing midwives and the first was LDS. She encouraged us to include Heavenly Father in our decision about a home birth, as He create me and our little one. He would know what we could both handle and what would be safe for both of us. So we prayed. We both felt safe and comfortable in our decision. The day our daughter was born was an interesting day to say the least. Long story short, after my water broke at 1:30am and no real, consistent, labor inducing contractions by about 5pm, my husband looked at me concerned and worried. He told me that he didn’t know what to do. It was looking like we were going to have to go to the hospital and we really didn’t want to. My answer to him… Let’s get a blessing. So he called a neighbor and by the time the blessing was over around 5:45pm, my contractions had started, were hard, and working towards consistency. By 8:30pm I was holding our precious daughter in my arms in the comfort of my own room.

During that blessing, the only thing that I remember was a feeling of peace and confirmation that what we were doing was the right thing and everything would be just fine. It was an answer to many prayers I had been saying all day long.

We should teach our children that prayer is a privilege and not a duty. We should teach them to pray from their hearts and not from their lips and not to pray by rote. We should teach them to utter prayers of gratitude to God for all the blessings that we enjoy—prayers of generosity, not thinking so much about the things we want or need, but praying for those who are in distress. Prayers need not be long; they should be rather short and to the point and well thought out.
If we will establish houses of prayer, there is no question that they will become houses of faith; houses of glory; houses of God; because his holy Spirit will come and abide in such homes in rich abundance. And in these homes we will find the spirit of unity, the spirit of cooperation, the spirit of sympathy, the spirit of kindness, and the spirit of love.
Joseph L. Wirthlin – ‘Prayer’ April 1949

Not only should we be praying more intently, we need to also teach our children to ‘pray from their hearts and not from their lips.’ It’s hard for children to understand to pray from heart when they are used to just repeating what you say. But I’m hoping, as my little three year old becomes more confident in his prayers, that he will feel more confident straying from the ‘script’ and praying from his heart.