Praying... it's a little like tying your shoes

By Linda C. Richardson

DO you remember when you had just learned to tie your own shoes? How good you felt about yourself? How grown-up? You were proud to twist the laces together and pull them down tight to make a good base for the bow, to make the loops and pull them down tight, too. You might even tie the loops again in a double knot, just to make sure they stayed tied.

Well, learning to pray is a lot like learning to tie your shoes. When you were very small (and even now), people who loved you prayed for you. But praying for yourself gives you an even more wonderful feeling of being grownup than tying your own shoes. It makes everything you do happier and more fun, and keeps you well in every way.

When you tie your shoes, you start by making a good base for the bow. If you make the bow without the base, it just doesn't work very well. The base for prayer is God. God is not just powerful—God is the only power. Without God, prayer has no base. God is also Love. Knowing that God is Love and loves you can make a big difference in everything.

With the base all set, you can begin to make the loops. That's like knowing about the connection between God and yourself. You're God's child. So it's natural for you to act the way God acts. You can think like this: "God is Love, so I'm loving and kind and good." "God is Life, so I'm full of life, energy, and joy." And "God is Truth, so I always tell the truth."

It's important to remember that God is the only power and is Truth. God didn't make bad things, so they aren't really true, and they don't have any power to make you sad or sick. Remembering this is like pulling down tight on your shoe laces so they won't come undone. If you feel hurt or sick, you won't come undone if you remember that God is the only power and never made anything to hurt you.

God didn't make bad things, so they don't have any power to make you sad or sick.

One day when Nick was in kindergarten, he hurt his leg. The teacher called his dad. Because he was at work, Nick's grandma went to pick him up at school. When she got there, Nick was pretty sad. His leg hurt a lot. As he was limping to the car, Grandma suggested that this would be a good time to pray. Nick was very quiet, but with each step he was less bothered by his leg. When they got in the car, Grandma asked him whether he wanted to go home or to the library as they'd planned to do after school. Nick answered that he'd been thinking that if God is all-powerful, there's nothing that has any power to make his leg hurt. Off they went to the library.

When they got there, Nick jumped out of the car and ran inside. Nick had made a loop. He had thought about the connection between himself and God.

Just like it helps to tie your shoes properly before you take off running, it helps to pray. Then you feel just as sure that God loves you as you feel sure that your shoes won't come off in the middle of a soccer game. You wouldn't wait until the middle of the game to tie your shoes, so why wait until you're in trouble to pray? You can think about your connection with God every morning—and then keep praying that way during the day. It's so good to know God is with you all the time.

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