prayers

when I was a kid, (being catholic) I used to believe you prayed to the virgin mary becuse jesus was busy doing other things like cleaning his room or doing the dishes, so he was never available, so I had to ask his mom if he could talk to me.

ConfusedChristian

When I was very little, I believed that God was an artist named Howard. "Our Father, who does art in Heaven, Howard be thy name..." I also believed that Mary had grapes inside of her. "Hail, Mary, full of grapes..." I rationalized that one because it said, "the FRUIT of thy womb, Jesus."

Anon

Growing up Catholic, I though the entire world was Catholic. I didn't realize there were other denominations til I was 12 and a Lutheran friend of mine was getting confirmed. I said I'd help her study and then found out they don't pray to Mary! The shock and horror and fear!

Jen

I went to a catholic primary school for we had to make a 'sign of the cross' before prayer (in the name of the father, and of his son, and of the holy spirit amen). However I joined nursery later than everyone and missed the teaching of this, so just had to pick it up as i went along.
I was saying 'For the name of my Farmer, and of his gun, and that Holy Spit - Amen' for 5 years!

Rach

I've almost died laughing reading about 'Mary, full of grapes', but in other languages that prayer also causes some trouble;

In Dutch, we say 'Mary, full of grace' as 'Maria, vol van genade'. But since I didn't listen too well as a kid, I always thought they were saying 'Maria, vol van garnalen', which litterally means 'Mary, full of schrimps'.

Go figure.

Diadora

When I was in pre-school, we were taught to sing "God is great, God is good, let us thank him for our food" before meals. I always misheard it as saying "God is gray," so I would be vaguely picturing some gray blob and wondering why it mattered what color God was.

Anon

"Hail Mary full of grapes the Lord is in a tree." (Hail Mary full of grace the lord is with thee.)
I said it incorrectly for about three years. I always wondered why our grapes grew on a vine and god's grapes grew in a tree.

Thumperjb

I used to believe that I had a certain amount of luck to last for my whole life, so I used to pray to the spirits to make small unlucky things that I didn't really care about too much happen - so I could save my luck for when I really needed it.

Anon

I grew up in a catholic family. We attended mass every Sunday. I grew up believing the prayer "Hail Mary full of grace" was " Hail Mary full of grapes". Everyone in church mumbled when they said it. I also believed God's name was Peter as I thought they all responded "Thanks Peter God" when in fact it was "Thanks be to God"

Winnie

At first, I didn't understand how God could answer so many prayers from everyone in the world at the same time. I concluded that God must have a gigantic call center in Heaven (or perhaps in India?) where angels took people's prayers the way technical support people took calls. However, I realized that this didn't make sense because lots of times everybody is supposed to pray at the same time (such as during services). I thought that if you prayed during "off-peak periods" your prayer would be answered more quickly and you would be less likely to be put on "hold".

Alex319

My cousin's maid, Mildred, used to say, "Jesus wept." instead of "Amen" at the end of her blessing before meals. I guess that, because she was a housekeeper, they thought she was saying, "Jesus SWEPT."

Marc

When the family would say grace before dinner, instead of saying "Amen", I thought it was "I win!" . . . for years.

Tracy

When I was 4, going to mass I wanted to know if we would pray to the "Monkey Women" today. Being confused my mom asked "Monkey Women?". You know "Hail Mary full of grace, the lord is with me, Blessed are the Monkey Woman..." instead of blessed are thou among women.

Ryan

When I was little, I never wanted to say the Holy Ghost part from "in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost" when I said my prayers. This was because I was afraid of ghosts (the kind that wore sheets and haunted people) and I believed that if I mentioned that word in a prayer, a ghost would overhear and appear in front of me, thinking I had called it. So instead I always said "Holy Spirit," because I thought that spirits were the friendly counterparts of scary ghosts, and I didn't think I'd mind if I accidentally called one of them.

Anon

I used to believe that my wishes never came true becuase when ever I prayed to god, he was either asleep and his answering machine was broken

Anon

we used to sing the Lord's prayer in first school, it was the one with "forgive us our trespasses and forgive those who trespass against us" as opposed to "forgive us our sins", which for a bunch of 4-10yr olds would have been much easier and would not have resulted in the whole assembly getting to that line in the song and simply replacing it with "sussy sussy"... everyone sang the same thing, NOBODY knew what the real words were!!!

v

When I was younger I would say my prayers, and then I would sit an imagine god examining my prayers. I pictured him saying to himself "What a good prayer" or "what a good girl she is..I'm sending her a pony."

shelerella

Well, actually, it is not really MY belief.
One time, a small girl was overheard praying, she said...
Our father, who does art in heaven, Harold is his name.
LOL.

Anon

I used to believe that the reason you folded your hands together when you prayed is that your folded hands were the micophone you prayed into so God could hear you

diane1455

When I was about 5 or 6 and we said grace at dinner, I thought the words were:

Goddess great
Goddess good
Lettuce thank him for our food

Anon