I put our two-year old granddaughter to bed. “You would be so proud of your cousin”, I remarked to the four year old granddaughter, “She is closing her eyes and folding her hands now for bedtime prayer.” She asks, “What prayer do you say with her?” I was shocked. I had taught her the same, “Now I lay me, down to sleep…” prayer as well. But now we do “big girl, on our own prayers” and she has forgotten the rote, memorized prayer that started her bedtime prayer journey. It got me to thinking how quickly our ‘littles’ will forget what we have taught them in Sunday School, in Worship, in Youth Group, at bedtime prayer moments, if they are not consistently exposed to them.
When performing Infant/Child Dedications, I include this scripture from Deuteronomy 6; “Keep these words that I am commanding you today in your heart. Recite them to your children and talk about them when you are home and when you are away, when you lie down and when you rise.”
May it be so….for Proverbs also tells us, “when they are old, they will not depart from it.”