Everyone family has a different routine at night, something to get the kids to bed and get a little bit of quiet time to calm down. My wife and I have prayed together every night since we were married. I can count on one hand (maybe two) the number of times that we haven’t prayed together in the last ten years. Occasionally, one or both of us has fallen asleep, but we were there.

Our Family Grows

When we had our oldest son, we wanted to extend this prayer time with him. As our family grew and our kids grew we have made the same commitment with them. Daily prayer with us, for now, every night. If we were out late, we do it on the way home. But even our kids can count the number of times we have missed. Our two oldest have been praying with us for a long time, and we have moved through different seasons of prayer. We have sung, chanted, even done a little bit of quiet meditation. We have at least tried various forms.

Saint Names

Each of our kids have saint names, for at least one of their names, and we have tried to encourage prayer requests via their namesakes. But then they have also tried guessing at ‘new’ saint names, like:

Is there a Saint ‘Ty’, what about Saint … umm … Saint ‘Daddy’?

Saint Moses, pray for us.

This app has given our kids exposure to a lot of Saints. A lot of saintly lives that maybe they would have missed if we were just ‘doing it on our own’. It is funny how natural it has become for our kids to think of details of some of the Saints.