Levels of Prayer

I am in my Sunday School class this past week abd we have a substitute instructor as our regular one is on holidays. I have never been in one of his classes before but I have known him for a few years and love his sense of humour so knew it would be a great class. Well it was!! Now I have been reading scriptures since who knows how long but I kept thinking "I don't remember that before" and where did he get that from. He was very animated and I followed his every word.

At one point he was talking about prayer and the faith of the prophet he was teaching about. He used an example that at times our prayers are very routine, sort of please bless so and so, I need such and such, amen and hop into bed before you get any answers. Then he went on to say he was at his mother's one day and for some reason she gave a family prayer. He said he listened to her as she prayed in earnest and he realized that is how we should be praying. So as he went on with his story it made me think of my prayers and that maybe they could be done in a little bit less routine manner.

So the other night as I knelt for prayer I was determined that I was going to pour my heart out in gratitude for all I had. I wasn't going to ask for anything I was just going to talk. I am leaving later this afternoon to see mom mom to give her some bad news and I needed reassurance that what I was doing was right. Well to make a long story short, I was talking so much that I fell asleep. I never go into REM mode and have been on medication for it for several years. The medication tries to fool my brain into thinking it is in REM mode so that it can rest and heal. Most days my brain is too smart to fall for that trick but what does happen is a couple of hours after I take it I will fall asleep regardless if I am in bed or not. The sleep comes very fast. I wish I stayed asleep that long but that is another story. Anyway in the middle of praying that 2 hour mark came and went and I went to sleep in the middle of praying. Now I have not mastered the art of sleeping and staying up on my feet in one piece or in this case on my knees in an upright position so gravity did it's thing and threw me sideways.

I do not have a night table. I have too much stuff to have a mere night table. I have a small bookcase that is home for my lamp, clock, numerous books, music boxes, pictures etc. I could have tilted to the right and just hit the floor but oh no that would have been way too easy. I tilted to the left and landed square in the middle of this shelving unit. Now had Keith put the unit together it would not have mattered what hit it. It would have stayed put. But he didn't I wanted to do it myself and used a kitchen knife to turn the screws as I couldn't find the screwdriver. I also had decided at the time I did not want the backing on the unit as then I would not have been able to get the cords through to plug things in. I mean that was supposed to be an option right?

So down I go into a very noisy unit scaring the crap out of Keith!! Now our bed is very high. I am tall and we got this bed purposely so I could basically just walk up to the bed and get in without any bending. So when Keith sat up he didn't see me as I was hunched down. He didn't know what made all that noise so when I went to sit up I scared the daylights out of him. When he asked me what on earth I was doing I said saying prayers!! He shook his head and said you fell asleep didn't you? Nope not me! I would never do that! So why are all your things off your shelves... uhhhh.. let me think of an answer to that.

Needless to say my prayers were done for the night. I had to reset my clock and that takes a science degree to do especially at 3 am! Then just when I turned the light off and was starting to nod off, one of my music boxes started to go off. I heard this deep sigh coming from Keith which turned into a very soft apology from me.

Thanks Don!! Could you give a better description in your next class??? One that doesn't involve class assignments for when they go home to practice what you preach???