The Valley of the Shadow of Death

Our Father who art in Heaven,
hallowed by thy name.
Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done
on Earth as it is in Heaven.


So over the past two weeks, we've been trying to begin finding some sort of routine with Avery. One thing that Sarah said early on that she wanted to do was to read a book and pray with Avery every night before bed. I thought that was a great idea and was immediately on board. I was reminded of one of my good friends Jeremy and how he has read the gospel to his son every night for most of his life, so I tried to think of something I could do to also begin introducing God's word into Avery's life. And so I thought of The Lord's Prayer and decided we could add that on to the end of our nightly prayer and that could just be something that even though Avery's not "learning" it right now, she's still hearing it.


Give us this day our daily bread
and forgive our trespasses
as we forgive those that trespass against us. 
Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

The first night went great. It was just me and Avery and it went off without a hitch. Hadn't said The Lord's Prayer in a long time, but somehow it came right back to me. So the next evening, I shared the idea with Sarah and that I wanted all of us to do it, and we finished that evening's book and then prayed.
For yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
Yep, turns out I did in fact need a bit of a refresher on the Lord's Prayers as somehow Psalm 23 found it's way into the prayer. I think Sarah also tried to throw in a couple of the beatitudes.


For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory
forever and ever, Amen.

So there are two takeaways from this endeavor:
1) Study up in advance of new initiatives.
2) Even though I've been primarily reading from the New Living Translation the past couple years, apparently I'm doomed to be permanently stuck with King James in some areas.