Prayer- we haven’t always been close friends. I haven’t always understood the benefits of communicating with God. I am constantly climbing up on top of spiritual high mountains where I commune with God and then I slip back down into secular low valleys. There are elongated periods of time where I stumble and struggling to lay my burdens down. Communicating with the Godhead takes practice and effort. 

People all over the world pray in their own language and in their own way. Muslims pray five times a day and they must find it effective or it would cease to exist for their religion. Catholics pray to Mary for help, guidance, and assistance because of her special relationship with Jesus Christ. The Amish speak prayers throughout the day in their homes and oftentimes they offer silent prayers as a family. In Judaism men pray in public three times a day within a specific time frame. Prayer has no boundaries. It is an essential part of peoples lives all across cultures, countries, and religions.  

This reminds me of a time when I decided to try out a combination of my own  faith, believing, and prayer. I decided to test out my own religious upbringing and see if prayer really worked for me specifically. 

I sit in my massive classroom with my teacher sitting at the front of the desk in his large-scale desk. The teacher has a glass eye that can pop in and out of his socket and he has a few sparse black hairs on the top of his head that he must still comb back every morning. He is tall and has a sizable presence in the fourth grade classroom. He is also our school principal. He must be a very busy man if he can teach the fourth grade class and run the entire school. In fact it must be some kind of a family business because his sister is the second grade teacher and his wife is the secretary. I can only imagine what happens at their family get togethers.

Our classroom is the first class room on the left as you walk through the double doors of the front of the school. It is roomy with the west wall full of bulletin boards and announcements from the PTO moms. On the other side of the classroom are two large green chalkboards that take up the whole wall. Enormous black and white erasers line the metal corrugated tray fastened to the bottom of the boards. Broken chalk, long chalk, and miniscule pieces of chalk are sprinkled near and around the erasers. 

I look over to the sizable chalkboards and one of the classroom bully’s has my initials written on the chalkboard. He spells out D.A.M. in large bold letters across the middle of the board. He points at me and bends over in hysterics as he laughs at my initials on the board. He says, “Oh my crap, I can’t believe those are your initials and your first name is DAIRY! Ha ha ha!” He continues on, “Or should we call you derriere?” Several boys laugh and point at me and they start chanting in front of the classroom, “Derriere, Derriere….” I am not sure how I should respond to this boy pointing and laughing at me in front of our class. Along with a few rude gestures the boy in the baggy t-shirt continues to draw a large Holstein on the chalkboard that is letting out a little extra air in the back end.

 Although ‘dairy-air’ is phonetically correct that is not the meaning of the word they were chanting. The teacher is outside of the room bringing in books filled with curriculum and instructions that the school no longer needs. I look at my impertinent classmates’ overgrown feet and I want to call him out for having feet the size of a giant. I hold my tongue and decide to take the higher road while I try to sound and look composed, “Yeah, those are my initials. It’s pretty cool! No one else’s name can spell out a swear word.” Yikes-technically it isn’t a swear word but a barrier that holds back water. Oh well, no one needs to know the nitty gritty details of my initials because I am trying to rise above the name calling and remove myself from the current position I am holding in the elementary caste system.

Our desks currently are in a horseshoe shape with the teachers desk positioned in the front and center of the students. I am sitting three quarters around the horseshoe closest to the door. Just outside our door is an antique water fountain. The front of the fountain is a small white porcelain bowl with the plumbing exposed on the outside. While the teacher is out gathering books we are all running around the horseshoe shape and in and out of the room to get drinks from the fountain. The lunchroom is the next room over from the fourth grade room. The lunch lady hears the commotion and comes to check out the watering hole, “What are you kids doing? You’d better get back in your class and sit in your seats!” She smiles at us and gives us a wink as she points her wooden spoon in our direction. Our whole school agrees that we have one of the best lunch ladies this side of the Mississippi. I quickly escape to the classroom and find my seat just in time. 

Our teacher walks through the door with another pile of books in his large arms. He sets them down on some folding tables that he has previously brought in and placed in a row by the chalkboards. Some of the books are hard bound, others have large black spirals running through hundreds of pages. The books vary in age and colors. Some contain curriculum and others are for reading. He instructs the fourth grade class to walk to the tables one at a time and take home whatever books we would like. He starts to his right of the horseshoe of desks and calls on each of us to take a turn. He says to the class, “Those who are sitting in your seats and waiting your turn please have an idea of what you would like so we can go through this quickly.” I have my eyes fixed on a book that I want to take home but it soon disappears as I wait my turn. Every time I want a specific book it is taken by another student. Finally there are only three kids that need to choose their books before I get my turn. I decide that I am going to try something bold and brave. 

I am going to pray. I am going to make an effort to believe in my own faith and pray for a specific book. It might just work. Actually it will work because I am going to leave no room for doubt or error right now. I have been taught about prayer my whole life but I have never really experimented with this theory before. Today, I am going to test the waters. I only have a few seconds to do this and I don’t want to look too obvious. I slightly bow my head, I close my eyes, and I think about the book in my head. I imagine the black spirals, the teal and lavender colors and all of the low quality pages in between the outer laminated covers. I start praying silently like I have never prayed before and my whole body believes that this book will be mine. My hands are clasped loosely with my elbows propped on top of my brown desk. I peek through the slits in my eyes and I notice the three people in front of me have taken the book I am praying about and then decided to put the book back. A familiar boy’s voice breaks into my head and interrupts my prayer. He blares out the words , “Are you praying?” He follows his question up by a loud laugh. My eyelids spring open and I look at him. You know the boy who was taunting me earlier and I say in a slightly off-pitched voice, “NO!” The teacher interferes with the boy’s laughter and says, “Dari, the large teal and lavender book seems to be pretty popular but for some reason it keeps getting returned. Would you like to take it home?” Fireworks are currently going off inside my body as I am coherently recognizing my teacher’s words coming out of his mouth. It’s a miracle! I can’t believe it…my prayer really worked. 

I carefully place one foot in front of the other and walk over to the long white tables. It feels like I am walking on holy ground. The fireworks are still erupting inside of me and I cannot believe I just witnessed a miracle through communicating with Deity at school. I gently touch the black spirals on the book and I respectfully walk back to my seat with the book clutched to my side. 

The school bell rings and my mind is still reveling in the fact that my prayer was answered. I started to put together what I did at that moment to receive an answer.

1. I removed all doubt from my mind.
2. I believed and had faith that I could get the book I had envisioned in my head.
3. I put God in the equation.

Wow! God really heard me today. I have never realized that prayer and communicating with God is so important. After I got off the bus I held tightly to the prized possession that God gifted me. I can’t wait to tell mom what happened to me at school today. I want to express to her that I felt like God heard and understood my desires today.

C.S. Lewis, a writer, a literary scholar and a Anglican lay theologian quotes, “A concentrated mind and a sitting body make for a better prayer than a kneeling body and a mind half asleep.” He had his own equation on communicating with God and as a young fourth grade girl I started to recognize and understand the need to have a concentrated mind to lay down my burdens at the Savior’s feet.

Here are three things you can try to help with strengthening your prayers:

1. Have faith that God hears and answers our prayers. (Mosiah 27:14) I definitely felt heard sitting awkwardly at my desk with my hands clasped in prayer. The lesson that I learned that day is that God hears me.
2. Have faith that God will bring about good things in our lives and in the lives of others as we devote ourselves to Him and His son. (Ether 12:12) I poured my whole soul into prayer in front of all my peers and I believed that God would bless me. This miracle happened to come to me immediately. There have been times when I have had to wait for miracles to happen. I am still waiting on a few blessings that will be given in the next life.
3. When we kneel in prayer have the faith to turn our will over to Him so that we can accomplish what Christ wants us to do. (Moroni 7:33) Obviously I wasn’t focused on being Christ’s hands or doing his will that afternoon in fourth grade. God has taught me throughout my life the importance of communication, reconciliation, and binding myself to Him through prayer.

Resources: 

https://m.economictimes.com/news/international/uae/why-do-muslims-pray-five-times-a-day-and-what-does-it-signify/articleshow/94053372.cms#:~:text=Every%20Muslim%20is%20obligated%20to,know%20about%20the%20Muslim%20prayer.

https://cparl.org/catholic-beliefs#:~:text=Worship%20belongs%20only%20to%20God,because%20of%20her%20own%20merits.

Is Amish a Religion, Culture, or Belief System?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_prayer#:~:text=According%20to%20halakha%2C%20Jewish%20men,performed%20at%20a%20certain%20time.

https://lifearoundthetable.ca/c-s-lewis-quotes-on-prayer/embed/#?secret=VkmGTd3Dwl#?secret=WL7j6HHzk8

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/preach-my-gospel-2023/14-chapter-6?lang=eng