The Most Complete Prayer

She thought about it that night as tears slid down her cheek in bed. 

Had her prayer time that day been enough?

 Had it been enough that she had invited her little daughter to ride her bike along with her to her little trysting place, and then just spent a moment quietly with God?

Down in the gully, she had thought of the quote she'd noticed as she checked her son's language workbook--

"A grateful thought toward Heaven is the most complete prayer."

 

And she had bowed in that grassy gully, and just said, "Thank You."

She had thought of the most painful part of things she was going through, and she had bowed her head, and she had just said, "Thank You--even for this."

And now, tears running her cheeks, was it enough?

Is it enough when your day is packed with things like paper work and red tape?

 With scrubbing dirty sock after dirty sock?

 With hanging line after line of laundry?

 And trying to help two high school students with geometry?

 And checking page after page of children's school work?

 And scrubbing vegetables from the garden beds for a stew?

 Was going to the little trysting place, and saying "Thank You," and then trudging home again because your brain won't function enough for a better prayer--

 was that enough?

There was no voice.

There was no thunder. 

There was no blaze of light.

But a weary mother fell quickly fast asleep,

because Someone in the Great Somewhere,

heard the grateful thought, and saw the tears,

and let her sense that in those kind of days, 

a single grateful thought toward heaven is the most complete prayer.