I used to pray everynight before I went to bed, and I had 2 nearly OCD-like things I needed to do in my prayers. First, I had to ask God to bless a very specific list of people I knew in a specific order.
Secondly, I believed that prayer was a direct conversation with God himself, so I was very careful to let him know that my prayer was over, often for several minutes after saying "Amen." I thought that if I didn't do this and accidentally said a bad word or did something bad, God would know immediately, and would be angry with me.
Hmm... may be why I'm a lapsed-Christian today...
A childhood belief about prayers
others believed things like this
- I used to believe that in the Christian Prayer of the Faithful, we were responding, "Lord, harrow prayer."— Smelleanor
- In the Hail Mary prayer, I used to say 'Bless a dark fowl among women' rather than 'blessed art though'Anon
- I believed God lived in a specific crack in one of the walls of my church — Blake
- I used to believe that when I said my prayers, "God Bless..." meant please keep burglars awayAnon
- When Madonna sang "let the choir sing" in "Like a Prayer", I thought she was singing "love by proxy"— Kristen
- I used to have to say the Lord's prayer everyday, but I would wonder where my daily bread was.— caledonia