A Special Petition

There are some amazing things that happen in life. One of them is when your 6 year old who has flat refused to pray for as long as I can remember just knocks out a prayer. That happened just before the school year started when he invited Joseph from across the street to the primary water party activity. We all walked over to give Joseph the invitation and then that night Jack told me he hoped Joseph would come. I said he should pray to Heavenly Father about it. "Okay" he said and then he offered a prayer - the first prayer I had heard in a few years and the first unassisted prayer. It had all of the proper elements of a prayer. To me this was a miracle and I will freely admit that I wept a bit as I thanked my Heavenly Father for that moment.

I thought perhaps I would go my entire life inviting Jack to offer a prayer only to get rejected time and time again. Now I rarely get rejected and if I do I invite a second time and Jack responds. He does very well. I know this is probably a simple thing and why would I think of it as a miracle or even make this big of a deal out of it in a blog post? Well, everything that we have experienced with Jack lends itself to that conclusion. When I consider the progress that he has made in the last year it is nothing short of miraculous. This is the boy that refused to go to primary, wouldn't sing, wouldn't sit in Sacrament meeting, hated drawing and writing and whose main source of food was chocolate milk. The exact opposite is the case today - obviously I didn't mention prayer in that list assuming it was understood. I am grateful for all who have played a part in this development and in this miracle.

This morning I invited Jack to offer the family prayer prior to he and Natty departing for school. He did so. Here is the basic content of that prayer:

Heavenly Father, We thank thee for this day. Please bless me and Natalie to have a good day at school today. We are thankful that tomorrow is St. Patricks day and that we can wear green. In the name of Jesus Christ amen.

We had a little laugh and I stood and watched as Natty rode off to school and Jack followed on his scooter. There are times when you worry as a parent and then there are times when you feel assurance that things are going to be fine. Over the last 4 years there were a number of times when I worried about Jack. Funny enough there were a number of times when I enjoyed that peaceful confirmation that he was going to be fine. This morning was another one of those as I stood and enjoyed that moment. Very grateful for those times.

Andy and I had a big day today. We went in to Kindergarten registration today at South Elementary school. He was excited to be there. He actually did very well and had fun talking to the teachers and taking the tests that were there. The hearing test was excellent as was the vision. He had a hard time with some of the letters and some counting but I actually think he was just being a little bashful. There was a long line waiting to meet the teachers. He had the chance to play with some of the other kids that were registering and he got on very well with them socially. I am quite hopeful that he will do just fine. I am still debating but am definitely leaning towards Kindergarten at this point. I thought he would be able to get back in to SUU but his teacher suggested yesterday that he may not be able to because his birthday is before the cut off for kindergarten. She is looking into it. We'll see but have to say I thought today went well and was positive. Perhaps a special petition is in order there as well.