Prayer

We have been saying a blessing on Jake's food at every meal since he started eating his meager millet baby cereal in December.

Before when we started feeding him and he would react to the rice cereal, the peaches, the apples, the Neocate formula, I never thought about praying over his food. I actually started hating food and had serious food envy when other moms would feed their babies.  I wanted so badly for Jake to eat.  Now, I feel silly for feeling that way because we are seeing miracles and there's so much I am trying to learn from his food allergies which are disappearing faster than we could have imagined.

It occurred to me that I needed to have more faith.  So, we turned to prayer.  At some point, I would hold Jake's arms in a praying position, whisper to him that we were going to pray, and I would say a short prayer to bless his food to nourish him and bless him, and I'd say Amen, and then repeat Amen so he would say it after the prayer was given.  Anything longer than that and he would loose it and want to eat or get out of his chair.

It was simple, but I my faith started growing as he began tolerating more foods.  We are taught in our church to bless our food at every meal to be good for our bodies, and I have to be honest, I do it out of habit sometimes and it can be very routine. It wasn't until Jake really started having trouble eating that I stared having faith in blessing food. So I applied faith that if I actually blessed his food, and prayed it would help him and nourish him, if it be God's will, he would be able to tolerate it.

If anything, at least he might learn to hush for a moment in church.  This little prayer upon his food has happened every day since he started eating solids because somewhere in my heart, I knew he needed to eat.  It was doing me no good to live in fear of what he could and couldn't eat.  Today as I was rushing about getting his meal ready, I sat down grabbed his food and spoon and turned to shovel his dinner into his mouth, only to find our sweet Jake with his arms folded. Quiet and ready to pray.  I stopped my scurrying and teared up a bit and said our blessing on his food.  His chicken, his sweet potatoes, his peas, and his yogurt.  There was a time when I never thought he would eat any of this until he was at least 2 if not 5.   Thank you Jake for stopping your busy 15 month old body and helping me remember that our little prayer has created a miracle in our family. Thank you dear dad and mom and dear friends and dear everyone, who randomly calls and tells us that they pray(ed) for him.  Prayers are answered.