Prayers ~ the steady kind ~ influenced my life at the core. What’s a steady prayer? To me, a steady prayer is a prayer that has continuous movement (like the breeze) yet is stable but also recurring, unfaltering, sure. Here are four steady prayers that shaped my young life and probably continue to guide me more than I realize. But first a little background.

Old West Austin, Texas, was where I was born and where I grew up in the 1940s. It was there that my mother and father kept a steady stream of prayers around our family of seven. We five daughters and our parents said the same prayers at approximately the same time every day and night. Those prayers are so engraved in my heart that it was not too difficult to remember them verbatim as I wrote this story. 

Yes, we prayed a lot! The prayers were short ~ like the attention span of a child ~ but they were steady and reliable adding strength to the spiritual and material fabric of our lives together. 

The most often repeated prayers were those said at mealtimes. There was a prayer of blessing before each meal and a prayer of thanking after every meal. These were referred to as the “Knippa Prayers” because Mom’s parents were named Knippa and they said these prayers in their home a few miles down the road. (They lived in a big house in Pemberton Heights. We lived in a little house in Bryker Woods.)

Before meals:

Heavenly Father bless this food
to Thy glory and our good.  Amen

It was always important to thank. I can still hear my mother training us by frequently quoting her mother who taught her the importance of gratitude.  My grandmother would say to my mother: “Don’t forget to thank!” My mother never did forget even at age 94 near the end of her long life. In her last years Mom made a deep impression on many of her caregivers because she thanked them for everything they did for her, even if it were painful, all of this while being entrapped by advanced dementia.

After meals:

We thank you Lord for meat and drink
through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

After breakfast there was a prayer said before we were allowed to go outside through the front door to begin our play or school day. Mom kept her steady hand on the screen door latch which she did not release until we had prayed this prayer:

Oh, help me Lord this day to be
Thy own dear child and follow Thee
and lead me Savior by Thy hand
until I reach the Heavenly Land 

At bedtime Mom read each of us our favorite story and then patted our backs until we relaxed into ~ or at least toward ~ sleep. This was our bedtime prayer:

Jesus, tender Shepherd, hear me.
Bless Thy little lamb tonight.
Through the darkness be Thou near me.
Keep me safe ‘til morning light.

I think that I will end by doing what my mother taught me as her mother had taught her. In remembrance of both mother and her mother I pray:  Thank you, Lord, for the guidance my parents gave me and my sisters in the form of simple, short, sweet, steady prayers. I learned that I can always talk to You, that You are always present, and that You will answer me ~~~ most of the time. For this on-going conversation with You called prayer, I am truly thankful.  Amen.