prayer requests

At King's it is encouraged that all first block teachers do devotions first thing in the morning. After calming the monkeys down, I start class with a corny devotional from a "Devotions for Teens" book, followed by a scripture reading and then the highlight: prayer requests. Every time we do prayer requests, I am reminded that scripture tells us that we are to love God and trust God like a child does. Beyond the reminder of a simplistic faith, I love prayer request time for several additional reasons.

Reason number 1: Somehow prayer requests always become thematic. If one person prays for someone with cancer, then everyone else suddenly is reminded that they know someone with cancer and that's their prayer request.

Reason number 2: Prayer requests are often braggadocios. One student last year somehow managed to pat themselves on the back every single day by giving a "prayer request." For example, the following prayer request was given by that student "um, well i found out that I am going to be featured in a book because i'm such a good student, so i just hope that um, that goes well."

Reason number 3: Prayer requests often having nothing to do with praying and is just an opportunity for a student to tell a story. Today was the perfect example. Student E (his name has been changed to protect his secret identity) raises his hand and thus goes the conversation:

Student E: "well every night my dog jumps into my bed and so there's lots of dog hair in it."
Mrs. H: "Ok, and how would you like us to pray for that?"
Student E: "um well you know, I can't really wash the sheets so there's lots of hair in my bed."
Mrs. H: "ok and again, how can we turn that into a prayer request?"
Student E: "um I would like to pray that there is less dog hair in my bed."
Mrs. H: "alright, we'll pray that your dog gets out of the habit of sleeping with you."

It is moments like these that are precious and also try my patience.