NO PRAYING ALLOWED

We start every meal with a prayer at home. Chase is pretty well disciplined and says his mealtime prayers along with a Bible verse (“Jesus wept,” John 11:35) often. There are times he wants to eat right away, until we stop and have him back-it-up and bless his food.

Recently, Chase charged the dinner table like he hadn’t eaten in months. I had to slow him down with my “say your verse or you’ll get a tummy ache,” speech. A confused look appeared on his face and I thought he was preparing to debate me on my tummy ache assertion. Not able to articulate what confused him, I helped him.

“Why are you looking like that?” I asked. “Ms. Laurie said we don’t do that," he responded. “Don’t do what?” I questioned. He lowered his head and said “Pray.” My heart sank; Oh yeah I thought, he is in a public school environment. He told me the classroom rules - remain quiet until your food is served and say please and thank you, “but not prayers,” he finished.

For this and other reasons I vowed to find a Christian school, but God said “Wait a minute. Remember, this is your responsibility, first.” Christian school should act as reinforcement to what Chase is receiving at home. We don’t live in a Private Christian World and whether he attends Christian School or not, it is our job as parents to give him the foundation to stand on God’s word everywhere.

Everyday is an opportunity for us to teach more and pray more and say more to our Children about God’s word. In parenting God has given us both tremendous responsibility and opportunity! I told Chase that he was free to say an individual prayer without permission or class participation; Go ahead....pray baby.

“Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it” Proverbs 22:6