Like most parents these days, I spend at least 3 hours a day picking up or delivering my children. I look forward to this time (usually) because in our hyper-busy life, this often is our only quiet time together. Mornings are especially precious to me, since we share morning prayers during the drive.

Since we do this with consistency, our morning prayers tend to take on a "book of common prayer" quality -- some repetitive verses, same prayer - new day. We always open together ('good morning Jesus, Thank you for this day') -- in the same manner we have opened for the last 10 years (at least). My daughter (the youngest) starts the prayers, I'm the middle, my son (the oldest) always closes. It doesn't matter what time we get into the car, how many people are in the car, where we are off to -- We can't seem to leave our house without morning prayer. It's an addiction (a good one, but an addiction none-the-less).

I don't know about your house, but mornings at our house tend to be insane -- and they get more chaotic as the week progresses. We are tired, rushing, crashing into each other, forgetting lunch on the kitchen counter, panicking over homework (I put it RIGHT HERE), barking orders (get your shoes on, brush your hair, did you brush your teeth? don't leave without breakfast...etc). By the time we get into the car we have yelled at one another at least once, I have used foul language at least once -- sometime there is crying involved -- and after this mad dash, we get in the car and start the race to be "on time". It is often after a wacky start that the first sentence centers and grounds us (good morning jesus...) and reminds us (thank you for this day) and gives us the peace and preparation we need to face the day.

Some days, my mind is racing on to all the stuff we have to do. The prayer becomes automatic, and I don't engage in it. It becomes like all the other white noise -- the morning news, the kids demands for my attention -- and I tune it out. Many times my daughter's prayers (which are very long and repetitive) get on my nerves and I find I am exercising every effort to be patient for her to finish so we can get on with the real praying (how ugly, I know.)

Today was such a day. We were late out the door, my daughter not sensing the urgency, my son in the car beeping the horn. My personal prayer "lord get us to school on time, help, help, help." ("Help, help, help" seems to be my daily mantra...)

The prayers started as usual, "good morning jesus, thank you for this day..." and then on to my daughter's daily vigil: "thank you for the trees, thank you for the birds, thank you for (insert 8 million inane objects here). Let us have a good day, Let everything good happen, Let nothing bad happen." (go back to thank you for the trees and start again, repeat about 1,000 times).

Today, I couldn't contain myself, since clearly my prayer was more important. "Ask God to get us to school on time, " I blurted out -- interrupting her flow. "MOM!" she cried out in two syllables. "I'm not finished!" She wrapped it up, adding a "help my mom to CALM DOWN" to her routine. We finished praying, adding a please help us be respectful of each other, I'm sorry for my impatience, etc.

They both made it to school on time, and my brain, now free of the "please help us get to school on time" obsessive prayer, was now open and able to hear God's conviction in my heart. What to me sounded repetitive and boring was to God the sweetest song in the earth. I interrupted His precious morning song -- He delighted in that song -- the innocent lovely song of my child. And I switched the channel on Him in the middle.

Hopefully my daughter will sing it again tomorrow.

But to make up for it, today I will pick up where she left off. Maybe you could help me. The main theme is this: "Let nothing bad happen. Let everything good happen." The rest of it consists of an infinite trail of thank yous. I'll start you off with mine:

"Thank you for my daughter, thank you for getting us to school on time, thank you how you admonish me when I really deserve it, thank you for forgiveness, thank you for confession, thank you for this blog, thank you for my car and the 3-4 hours a day I get to spend in it with my children, thank you for those children, thank you for the trees, thank you for the clouds, thank you for that bird over there on the left.... (keep going until you run out of things to be thankful for -- this could take awhile...).

Let us have a good day. Let nothing bad happen. Let everything good happen.

Amen.