prayers

I used to think an alternative to praying to God, you could go outside and shout as loud as you can toward the sky so He can hear you.

Anon

My family isn't at all religious, but we go to Church every Christmas and sometimes I go to church with friends. I know the Lord's Prayer now, but when I was little and had to say it I made the words up (not coming from a religious family, I rarely heard it), so it could end up like "Our Father, who art in Heaven, hello Ed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth, Asit is in Heaven, Give us this day our day Leebred, and forgive us our tress passes, as we forgive those who tress pasagen stuss...." you get the picture... I always wondered who Ed, Asit and Leebred were, and why God liked them so much that he put them in the Lord's prayer. And now, at the age of 14, I still stumble a bit at the end :-P

Jesi

At primary school we had a teacher called Mrs Auger. Every lunch time before/after a meal, we would all say, "For what we are just about to/have just receive(d), may the Lord make us truly thankful, Amen." My friend used to think it was actually "For what we are about to receive, Mary Auger make us truly thankful, Amen." She thought that the teacher's name was Mary and that she was the one who was making us thankful! Lol.

Jesi

I went to a catholic school, so they teach me to pray as a way to speak to God, and said we must pray every night (so I did). But I couldn't imaginate how God could speak to everybody at the same time. My mum told me God has a huge pbx with answer-machine so you can leave a message that sure he will listen to. And for a long time I used to leave messages.

jordi

I used to believe that the creator of a country is our god and we offered prayers to them by singing the national anthem.

Zoya

This happened to me when I was a child of about 4 or 5 years of age:
My mother used to pray with me every evening before I had to sleep. Eventually she abandonded this habit but told me, that it would be very important to pray independently, e.g. for my brother, sister, grandparents etc., because god would be allmighty and could see and do everything.

Firstly I prayed every evening, because I believed in what my mother told me. But by and by I grew weary of this and so one day I prayed: "God, if you are really allmighty and if you really can do everything, could you please,please pray for me every evening ! "
After doing this I breathed a sigh of relief, because I felt freed of my duty. Honestly, I never told her...

Anon

when I was in second grade we use to say the Lords Prayer..The Lord is my shepard, I shall not want. I thought it meant I shouldn't want Him... I couldn't understand why we prayed to Him but rejected Him all at the same time.. That was 35 years ago ..funny what you remember.

Dale

I used to believe that in the Christian Prayer of the Faithful, we were responding, "Lord, harrow prayer."

Smelleanor

Until I was about 9 (my scoutmaster explained the truth to me) I thought the word "Amen" had something to do with the Trinity. A-(one) God in Three "men" (Father, Son, Holy Ghost). "Amen" was to be sure the prayer went to all three, I guess.
Also, I used to think that the phrase in the American Pledge of Allegiance "One nation under God, indivisible" was "...under God invisible" (since I had been taught that God is invisible). I think my scoutmaster cleared that up, too.

Rev. C.K.

When I was little I took the phrase YOU CAN BE ANYTHING YOU WANT TO BE too literally and thought you could be a tree or an animal. So I prayed every night and hoped God would turn me into a hedgehog.

Elizabeth

When I used to pray, when I was little, I wasn't always sure if God was there, he's a very busy man, having to take care of the world and stuff, so when I would pray, it would begin something like "Dear God, if you not here right now, I'm leaving you a message...." I was a weird kid.

Bethany

At my daycare center, during lunch, they'd make us say a simple prayer (though at that age I didn't know what a prayer really was). I thought we were saying, "Scott (God)is great, Scott(God) is good, let us spank (thank) him for our food.".
My mom still teases me about this 20 years later.

Merc

Didn't Jesus say "And lead us not into Thames Station!"

Chris - Sheffield

i was only taught how to say Hail Mary in Chinese, but somehow during the meal, my family always say it in English. As a kid, I tried to catch up as much as I could, and for quite a long while, my English version of Hail Mary was: Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with you, blesssssssss..... fruitssss...Jesus....ssssss.....death. Amen

anon