My mind wanders. Sometimes I arrive at a thought and have not idea how I got there, so I begin tracing my thoughts, stringing them together until I arrive back to the original thought. The connections between each thought can be pretty wacky. This happens ALL THE TIME during my prayers. I sometimes imagine Heavenly Father's amusement as he follows the ridiculous string of thoughts from when I start praying until amen. Other times I wonder if he finds anything amusing in my inability to focus while speaking to him.
Let's say that you had an appointment with the most powerful man in the universe, whether it was on the phone or in person. Don't you think you'd have some sort of idea of what you would say?
I tried something new the other day; I wrote out a prayer. Not word for word, but I made a list of things to pray about. Not only did this make me more intently consider what I would pray about, it also gave me a list on my phone that I could come back to during the day. I actually prayed for things that I desired, rather than whatever came to head in the moment.
All this stuff makes me think of my mission. I wrote and received emails every week for two years. I thought carefully over my week and included the things I thought my family would like to hear about, whether it was a funny story or spiritual experience. My mom printed out a copy of each email and put it in a binder. It's sort of a book of mission highlights. What if we had a book of all the prayers that we've ever prayed? I bet the knowledge of such a record would help us pray more carefully. I bet there is such a record and, maybe during judgement or even just for kicks, someday we'll sit down and read through them (at least the ones that made it past the ceiling).
Conclusion from all of this -- my prayers would be better if they were emails. Do you think He'd accept them?
