Teaching About the Power of Prayer

After returning home from Idaho, (okay..maybe not immediately after, but sometime within the next week) I unpacked all the bags, including carry-ons and backpacks. The following week, the kids asked to play on the Ipods. Sure, anything to continue snuggling with my husband in bed. Well, they couldn't find them. We searched every where! I even started calling stores and sports centers, anywhere we had been that week, hoping some honest person would have turned them in. We were so disappointed that we had lost not only one, but two very expensive devices.

One morning, I woke up determined to find the Ipods and I felt the kids should help. For a brief moment I thought, "go pray." I always feel so silly praying over things that are materialistic, so I brushed it aside. Then it hit me again, only differently, "go pray with your children." That did it. I sat the kids down and told them how our Heavenly Father cares for us very much and that we can ask him for help anytime, even for the little things. Then we all knelt down and said a prayer. After standing up I asked the kids if they thought we would find them now. There was no doubt on their sweet little faces, however, I snuck away to the closet and knelt down. I asked the Lord, not to help us find the Ipods, but to teach Coda and Gracie the power of prayer. Even as I walked out of the dark little room, I still begged in my heart that we might discover those highly addictive, unnecessary devices to teach this very important lesson.

We began in Gracie's room, mainly because her room is the most cluttered of all the rooms in the house and needed some dejunking, but also because Coda and I both thought Gracie had the silver Ipod last. We spent a good couple of hours dumping toy bin after toy bin, searching under the bed and going through laundry pockets. Nothing. It would be a lie to say I wasn't a little disappointed. I grabbed her backpack from the floor and realized it seemed a little heavy, however I specifically remember emptying out the pockets from the trip. Sure enough, in the tiniest of pockets was the red Ipod. As I pulled it out the kids' eyes lit up. "Heavenly Father helped us find it!" Gracie screamed, literally. Coda said, "I bet it wasn't even in there until we prayed to Heavenly Father, and he knew we would look there so he put it in there." However their little minds wanted to imagine how or when the Ipod appeared in the backpack didn't matter, only that they knew Heavenly Father answered our prayer.

That night, during family prayer, Coda thanked our Father in Heaven for answering our prayer and helping us that day. Then, for the next three days during any prayer, both he and Gracie asked for help to find the silver Ipod. It eventually turned up in a drawer, which after the fact, I remember putting it in there so we wouldn't "lose" it. (Now, that "lose it" drawer is the place we store the Ipods, hopefully we will all remember they're in there next time!)

I'm so thankful for the power of prayer, not only in this instance, but in all the times my Father answered my prayers. I am so blessed!