We Need to Pray

My second grade son is such a sweet boy. He always has been. He is always thanking me for things I do around home and telling me how much he loves me. He brings me flowers that he picks, weeds really, but the sentiment is the same. He genuinely wants to do and be good. He is kind, sensitive and loving with a very tender heart.

This week we had kind of a scare where we live. We were issued a tornado warning in the early afternoon, an unusual occurrence for our part of the country. I received a telephone call from the local weather station where I had subscribed to receive weather alerts. It told us to take immediate shelter and the warning would expire for our county about 25 minutes later. This was ten minutes before my oldest daughter was to be released from school and walk home. I didn't know what to do. My immediate response was one of panic and fear - wanting to protect my sons at home with me and worried about my daughter who wasn't home with me. I told the boys I was worried about my daughter, but that we needed to go in my closet. It's the only room we have without windows and where we keep our emergency supplies. But my second grader said, "Mom, I think we need to pray." So the three of us knelt right where we had been standing and he said a prayer asking Heavenly Father to protect us from the tornado and to watch over his sister. We stood, walked into my room to go in the closet for safety and I turned on the TV to monitor the progress of the storm. I no sooner had turned on the TV than the weatherman announced that the tornado warning for our county had expired - 25 minutes early. My sweet son then said, "Mom, we need to pray again." As I knelt with these two little boys and said a prayer of gratitude for our safety I recognized the great faith in my son. Where my immediate response was one of fear, his was one of faith. Some may say this was mere coincidence, that the warning would have expired early without his prayer, but I know better. I was there. I heard his prayer. Fear and faith cannot coexist in the same heart. Oh, that my heart can be like that of a child - full of faith. That my first response can be - we need to pray.