Prayer ADD

Do you ever find yourself praying and then all of a sudden you are off thinking about some random thought?

This happens to me daily. Since I wake up to feed a baby a few times a night, I find myself lying awake thinking a lot. (Why I can't fall back asleep is beyond me considering how tired I always feel). I usually take the opportunity to pray....and sometimes I will still be laying there 30 minutes later praying. Not because I am an expert prayer warrior or that I feel I need to lift up every person I know, it's because I have prayer ADD.

This is what it sounds like, "Dear Lord, thank you for this day and the beautiful baby girl you have blessed me with, please help her to grow healthy and sleep through the night, I pray for...did I turn off the Christmas tree? Oh, I really need to finish shopping. I think I got a coupon in the mail today for Kohls. Maybe I will go look there. I guess that means I am waking up early to take Ollie to the train...or maybe I'll just go when he gets off work. Oh man, I was praying....sorry Lord. Please forgive me for not focusing on my prayer. I pray for the families affected in CT...."

And so this continues. Does this happen to you? I know God hears all our thoughts and cares about every aspect of my life, but I know he would rather my prayer be focused. So here is what I have decided to try to help my prayer ADD (this is my behavior plan for all my teacher friends....LOL):

1. I am going to try and pray out loud instead of in my head.
2. I am going to try and write my prayers down.
3. I am going to keep a notepad next to me, so when I have a random thought, I can write it down and get it out of the way before a tangent sets in.

Notice that I said TRY...I know I'm not perfect and will fail at this numerous times. Especially because I like to pray when I am up feeding the baby...and I can't really do the things above in the dark. Isn't it comforting to know that God loves us regardless of these imperfections. He doesn't care what my prayers sound like...he just cares that I pray.

Share some of your funny ADD prayers. Can you help my prayer ADD? What do you suggest I do? Or what do you do to stay focused during prayer?

I'd love to hear from you! Feel free to leave a comment below!