Blessed Are We

When I was living with Ma Patra, each person present at the table said a scripture before we ate.  I was too little to understand exactly what we were doing.  All I knew was that before I could eat, I needed to say “Jesus wept.”  Now that I’m older, I know that it’s the shortest scripture in the Bible.  I was the youngest kid at the table, so the length of the verse fit me at the time.

I don’t recall a time in life when my family hasn’t prayed over the food.  It’s what we do.  It’s who we are.  And as much as we like to eat, that means that we send lots of prayers up to God.

Sometimes, my family members can use that as a time to catch up on all the time that they’ve missed talking to the Lord privately.  You don’t want the wrong person to volunteer to bless the food, because they are going to pray about all of life’s situations.

Sometimes, the blessing of the food can cause uncontrollable laughter.  My cousin’s prayer on Super Bowl Sunday will go down in history as one of the most epic prayers of all time.  I laugh every time I think about his prayer.

Sometimes, it reminds me of how blessed we are.  Nothing touched my heart more than Sweet Baby saying “Let’s pray” and listening to her lead the prayer.

I’m grateful that I grew up rooted in prayer.  But the baby scripture that I quoted as a kid is not going to hold me today.  I’m so glad that I serve a God who delights Himself in communicating with me.  I take it for granted that I have direct access to Him through Jesus.  When the veil was torn, He gave me an open line to tell Him all of my fears…and all of my joy.  #wepreach