Granny Can't Dance

I wrote this in the Summer of 2006. I recently saw "Granny" and decided to share this here....

As long as I can remember, we have always had a time for prayer requests at the church where I grew up, and still attend. This is especially true when we gather in small intimate groups like men’s meetings, women’s meetings and Sunday school class. Not only do I believe that prayer changes things, I also believe that sharing one another’s burdens is good for us all.

My wife is in charge of doing the count for worship services. She counts everyone in the sanctuary during the morning worship service on Sunday mornings, and if she is not through when the kids leave for children’s church, she will go out to count them after they settle in for their morning lesson.

A few weeks ago, she went out to count children’s church Sunday morning and she arrived just in time to hear the prayer requests. As you can probably imagine, prayer request time can be rather interesting when there are three and four year olds involved. One precious little boy said, “Pray for my Granny. She can’t dance.”

The teacher asked a clarifying question to be sure she understood. She did, of course. It was a dance problem, to be sure. She assured the little boy that this was important.

No one was sure if “Granny” had some kind of injury, Luke had overheard something from Granny or his parents, or he was making some observation based on his knowledge of dance. It does not really matter. It was important to Luke that they pray for his Granny.

I am often amazed at the faith of little children, not just faith, confidence. At what age do we lose this?

When we were five, we could dance. What kind of music, you ask? It didn’t matter. Just crank it up and we would be there. Now? Sure!

How about singing? Of course, we could do that too. We would provide our own words if we needed to.

Draw? Paint? Of course.

Prayer was just as easy, and our faith was boundless. We learned: "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep…” The next line I learned was “If I should die before I wake, I pray the lord, my soul to take.” My wife thought that that was harsh, so our girls learned: “angels guard me through the night, and keep me safe till morning light.” (I do like that…)

We also learned, “God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food; by his hand, we are fed, thank you Lord for daily bread. Amen.”

When we could pray our own prayer, it sounded more like:
“God, this is Billy. Thanks for the meatloaf and the mashed potatoes.”

“Mama, do I have to thank him for the squash?”

“Yes, Billy thank him for the squash.”

“I thank you for the squash, but not as much as for the fried okra, sliced tomatoes and blackberry cobbler.”

“Mama, that is blackberry cobbler, ain’t it.”

“Don’t say ain’t and yes it is blackberry cobbler.”

“…and the sweet tea. God, Mr. J.B. up the road said that you needed to send some rain or there ain’t gonna be no corn this year on Chicken Road ‘cause it’ll all burn up. If you let it rain, let it rain tomorrow morning so I won’t hafta pick butterbeans. ThankyaJesusamen."

If we didn’t understand something, we’d ask, no problem. In Stuart Hample’s book “Children’s letters to God”, a little person named Jane wrote, “God, in Sunday School, they told us what you do. Who does it when you are on vacation?”

On a recent weekend, I was at a church function; I came face-to-face with Luke’s Granny, and took the opportunity to ask her, “Marilyn, can you dance?”

She replied, “Sure I can. Do you want to dance?”

Thank you Jesus, it’s an answer to prayer, no doubt about it!