prayers

This isn't my belief but its very funny:
my granny once told me that the house she had lived in with my mum and my auts and uncles had a fire guard over the fire, and whenever they said grace before a meal my Uncle would look at the Fire Guard. When they went to stay somewhere without a fire guard, he refused to say grace at all. This was because when they said "Dear god..." he'd always said "dear guard..." meaning the fire Guard!!!!

Anon

when I was little, when bad things used to happen to me, I used to pray to God that he would rewind my life briefly so I could fix whatever was about to happen. I used to say, 'God, I don't care if I don't remember the experience of it un-happening, I would just really like this to not happen.' so I thought that some horrible things had happened to me in my life, but God would rewind a little bit after my prayers, and of course, I wouldn't know because I said I didn't need to remember it. this is still sort of plausible in my mind today

Anon

In church when the response to the gospel reading was thanks be to God, I though it was thanks Peter God, and God was called Peter.

Anon

When I was a little girl I heard my Grandfather saying grace. Somehow I got the notion that if you didn't pray "out loud" the devil would steal your prayers!

Susan

When attending Catholic mass as a kid, I used to think, for whatever reason, that "Lord, here our prayer" was "Lord, here operator", as if he had a phone call or something. Very strange indeed.

confused as a kid

when I saw those prepare to meet thy god signs I thought they were beauty parlours for religous ladies only!

knuckles

I used to believe that if you opened your eyes while praying, that for however long you had your eyes opened, you had to keep your eyes closed for that much longer after the prayer was finished. So i started closing just one eye, and the other eye that i kept opened would see who else would need to keep their eyes closed after the prayer

Kelsey

Having watched too many Hindi movies at a very young age I believed in the special effect when you look at the idol hard , the images blur , lo and behold god appears in person.I tried loooking very hard , so hard that the image blured but god never appreared

Atrai

As a child I always made sure to say my prayers every night. I would especially ask God to forgive me for any lies I may have told. You see my Mom would tell me that the devil would come and pull my tounge out of my mouth at night while I slept if I told lies. As I was going to bed each night I always pictured this happening and never forgot to ask for God's forgivness and protection.This may sound harsh on my Mother's part, but it also made me detest lying and therfore made me a very honest person...one of my best qualities!!

Anon

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 used to say to myself for years the lord's prayer to myself like this:

"Our father whose locked in heaven, ..Harold be thy name. "

Scott McElvany

My Grandmother used to tell me if I sat anything on top of the Bible, I would go to hell. The Bible had to be above everything.

Kendra

I used to believe that whenever i prayed on wanted something from God, i had to balance it out with something i was grateful for. I also used to obsess that i had to include every family relatives name in my prayers or they wouldn't go to heaven. Ah, Catholicism.

Wolfgang

When I lived with my dad, he told me to say my prayers every night before I go to bed. He meant EVERY night. And for the longest time I thought if I didn't say my prayers before I go to bed, then I would die in my sleep. So I actually did that EVERY night, until I lived with my mom and saw she didn't die when she didn't say her prayers.

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

when my sister was littel she thought god was a cloud with eyes a nose and a mouth..how sweet!!!!

also when i was little i thought you got a baby/pregnant by praying for one because that was what was in all the story's

anon

I was raised a catholic and went to a catholic school but I was well into my teens before I could stop saying 'Hell Mary, full of grace etc'...

Buzz

I always believed God is a "pleasant help in time of trouble"

I was almost dissappointed to find the Bible says He is a "present help" instead!

Fiona

I used to believe that from Good Friday to Easter I had to pray to God instead of Jesus because Jesus was "dead" for those 3 days.

Jessica

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.