Wednesday, November 5, 2008

A Child's Prayer

Tonight, Bethany said our bedtime family prayer. She always has very thankful prayers and rarely asks for anything, but tonight was so honest and innocent. I want to share it with you. Here is some of it....."Dear Heavenly Father, We thank thee for our good day. I'm thankful for my sister, my mommy and daddy, and all of our friends and family and my toys and my fun times and my heart, and I'm thankful that you will help Mallory to never lock us out of the house again when our backs are turned....." So, I have to stop right here and explain. The girls and I made our weekly WalMart run after school today, and when we got home I took the girls, my purse, and half of the groceries up onto the porch, unlocked the door, put my purse and keys on the chair by the door and set the groceries just inside the door. Usually the girls play around on the porch while I finish up, but Mallory had stayed in the house this time. The car is about 10 yards, if that from the front door, so I go to the car with Bethany to get the rest of the stuff out and as we get back to the porch I notice that the door is closed. I think, "OH, NO! I hope the keys are still in the lock." But, they're not. Then I think, " Well, it should be unlocked because I just unlocked it." But, it wasn't. I must have turned the key back around to the locked position. My 2 yr old had locked us out of the house! I didn't have my phone....it was in my purse, or my keys, obviously. And, she is too small to reach the door knob and doesn't even know how to work a round door knob, so now what???!!!! For a while I talked to her through the door and tried to coach her to open the door. I made suggestions like, "go get your stool from the bathroom and turn the knob, honey!", to which her response would be , "nope." I realized this must be pretty fun for her. She has complete access to the house AND the groceries which I'd just set inside the door including a carton of eggs. I start to hear the bags rustling, and I KNOW she is playing with the eggs. Oh, well....what can I do? Finally, a guy from up the street comes by on a bike, and I asked if he had a phone so I could call and try to get my spare key from my in-laws. At the same time, I'm thinking "HOW AM I GOING TO GET BACK INTO MY HOUSE???" because I knew that they were out of town shopping today. I had to track down my brother-in-law to see if he could find a key to their house (because we're the only ones with keys to their house - mine was in my purse and Brad had his at work with him) so that he could go see if he could find MY spare key and come to rescue us. How crazy is this situation?! Shortly after I send him on this errand, Mallory starts crying inside the house. I'm trying to console her, and starting to get a little panicked. Did I mention that Bethany had been saying she had to use the bathroom since WalMart and I told her to wait until we got home? Then, my hero, Ed - or as Brad likes to call him - Champ, comes around the corner with the key. I open the door to my crying baby and step over the broken eggs to pick her up and check for eggshell injuries and...... all is well. Not hurt, just scared and messy. The whole thing lasted about half an hour I think. Bethany and I had stopped at one point during this ordeal and prayed that Ed would find the key and we would get to Mallory quickly and that she would not be hurt. Our prayer was answered, and I found it so sweet that she thought to mention it in her prayer tonight......and kinda funny, too. ;)

5 comments:

Staceroo said...

The faith of a child is amazing. I'm sure Bethany will remember this as one of her faith building experiences when Heavenly Father answered her prayer to help her sister and you as well. And yes, kid prayers crack me up too. They're so candid and honest - I'm sure Heavenly Father's got a great sense of humor. :)

Melissa said...

That is hilarious! I love how she said "nope" when you told her to turn the knob. That has actually happened to me before only I was locked out of the car.

The Coles said...

HI MAndy, I saw your Blog on Deana's. I have the same background, I love it! Very nice to see pics of your family. I cannot believe how big Bethany is!! What a great story!

Deana said...

Wow! What an ordeal! Kimberly can turn door knobs but is still too short to reach some of them. i am glad that she was okay. I would have probably freaked out and broke the window to get in. Prayer is real. That was a good teaching moment for Bethany.

Rachelle said...

I don't know if you remember this, maybe not...but when we were moving to VA, Hayden locked himself in my mom's car- he was in his car seat- only 1. We were in the parking lot on Dorsey Lane and trying to finish up packing a few things- my mom gave Hayden her keys with the key fob to keep him occupied- the car was also running-we were about to leave. He pushes the lock button and then starts laughing at us- here he is, in the car and we can't get to him. Then he starts this gagging thing- he would gag himself because he got a kick out of it...of course he gags himself and then throws up- in the car! All the while, we're trying to show a 1 year old how to unlock the car...a bit later a nice policeman came and unlocked the doors for us...what an ordeal! but a great memory! :)