Thankful Thursdays

My mother taught me to pray.

During our time in Spain, we once lived in a basement apartment that was dark and spooky, and I often heard noises at night and couldn’t sleep. Didn’t help that my brother would tell me creepy stories about some dude he saw every night sitting in the rocking chair in his room. Anyway, I would knock on the wall dividing my bedroom and Mom’s and she would come over to my bed and have me recite with her the Our Father and Hail Mary until I fell asleep. That one memory is so vivid.

Many moons later, I had the chance to do the same for her when I stood by her deathbed and recited over her the Hail Mary as she took her last breaths. Again, vivid memory.

l cannot tell you how many times I’ve said those two prayers since Mom taught them to me, but I know with certainty that if I were to measure the amount of times in miles, it’d get me way out into the universe.

Lately, it’s gotten like I have one or both of those prayers constantly uploading in my head. Hoping, of course, for a favorable and fast download from the Lord. But it takes a lot for us to patiently wait for whatever spiritual data God downloads into our lives, doesn’t it? Sometimes we have the will and nerves to wait, sometimes we don’t. And that just makes us crazy.

Let’s not be crazy. Let’s keep uploading our spiritual data. The Lord will download His. In time.

I am thankful for my mother and that she taught me the prayers that keep me sane today.

What are you grateful for?

Until next Thursday’s post…si Dios quiere.

[Note: In case you’re not Spanglish-speaking, “si Dios quiere” means God-willing. Mom finished most of her sentences with that phrase. I added it to my sendoff in her honor after her passing].

“Is prayer your steering wheel or your spare tire?”
-Corrie Ten Boom

“But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”
-Romans 8:25

“Prayer is not asking. Prayer is putting oneself in the hands of God, at His disposition, and listening to His voice in the depth of our hearts.”
-Mother Teresa