In college I seem to remember a member of our Stake Presidency suggesting that we hold hands as roommates while we said apartment prayer. He said that it was hard to have bad feelings towards another person if you were holding hands praying. It sounded like a good idea but truthfully we never really good at the whole apartment prayer thing so we never put it into practice. Well now that I have a family I've decided that we should hold hands during family prayer, after all roommates tend to get along a little better than siblings do.
After putting this into practice in our home I have to tell you that this Stake president must have ONLY been talking about roommates. Holding hands during prayer tends to result in tears in our house. Either one kid is squeezing the other’s hand too tight, or they are elbowing each other, or, even better, they let go of Mom or Dad’s hand so they can more fully hit or tackle their sibling. On more than one occasion prayer has ended by sending both of the kids to the corner. Yes, if you want to learn about reverence during prayer look no further than the Davis family.
2 comments:
No wonder I like you so much. You're normal. Your family is normal and you keep going. Yeah!
for kids, I think there is a lot to be said for folding our arms.
We actually a discussion at the dinner table a couple of nights ago as to why we should close our arms, bow our heads and fold our arms. (this came after Brian announced after prayer that Bryce wasn't folding his arms OR closing his eyes during the prayer which prompted a "how do YOU know" from everyone else..
so, now my kids know that we close our eyes and bow our heads so we don't SEE things going on around us; we should be picturing heavenly Father when we pray, and we fold our arms so we are not tempted to do other things with them like touch the person next to you. It helps us to be still.
So, holding hands must be for college roomates only!
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