A prayer during communion

I was sitting by my boys (5 and 3), one on each side of me during service. Nothing unusual was happening, mostly the same routine for us during the service. Then came the Lord's Supper. This part of the service is always interesting for us, because it can be difficult to quietly concentrate on Christ's sacrifice when your child is asking you to get him a crayon or help read a book. Over the weeks/months, we have been trying to teach the boys what the Lord's Supper is about and why we partake each week.

Before I continue the story, you need to know that we pass the bread first and then pass the juice separately.

Well, on this Sunday, something unusual happened. On this Sunday, after I ate the bread I decided to go ahead and just pray silently. It's not the first time the boys have seen my wife or I do this. But, on this occasion, my oldest did something different. While I was praying, he started to ask me a question. I do not know what the question was about, because he stopped himself mid sentence. And without opening my eyes, I continued to pray. Then, less than a minute later I heard him quietly talking to himself (which is not that unusual). What was different was that he was not talking to himself, he was praying.

He began to pray and this is a paraphrase of what I remember him saying:

"God, thank you for dying on the cross for me, so that I can have eternal life and live with you in heaven. I'm glad you did."

Then, when the juice was being passed and I took it and then prayed, he did the same thing. He prayed pretty much the same prayer again.

After I was done praying, I opened my eyes and looked at him. He asked if I was praying, to which I said "yes." Then he told me that he was too. (I did not tell him that I heard him or was so proud of him - I'll save that for later). I told him that it was good to pray during the Lord's Supper and smiled.

My son understands the connection between the Lord's Supper and Christ's sacrificial death on the cross. I mean, he could have prayed about anything, but he chose to pray about Christ's death and eternal life. He prayed a simple, genuine prayer of thanks - a great reminder of the simplicity of what Christ did for us on the cross.