Lesson learned: Don't overthink it

So in first grade we work a lot on writing. It's fun to see their writing get better and better over the course of the year but it oftentimes involves a bit of translation on my part to decipher their writing.

Sometimes their writing looks like this:

But other times it looks like this:

Here's the translation, in case you were wondering:


Mine's about the babies.

When the mice are born

they have no fur.

When they're born, they

can't see. When they're born

mice run.

Mice see                      

Mice 10 days.


So yeah. It's tricky sometimes. But I don't blame the students. Writing is hard. They have to think about handwriting, punctuation, spelling, capitalization, grammar, and content. The unfortunate part is that sometimes my students will be thinking so much about the spelling and the rules of writing, that their content is lack-luster or doesn't even make sense.

I think I sometimes feel like this when I am trying to pray. I want to express myself and say what I'm really feeling. But then I've heard so many things about making sure you pray for the right things and use the right language and be respectful and make sure you express gratitude and include a "thy will be done" and pray as if He is really there but also remember that you are speaking with Deity and your prayers should be aligned with His will and pray to have the Holy Ghost inspire you to know what to pray for, etc. It sometimes makes me so confused and then I start to overthink things and then it kind of ruins the whole prayer experience.

Lucky for us, we have an all-knowing Heavenly Father who knows exactly what we are trying to say when we pray. He knows us so intimately that He is able to listen to our hearts more than the actual words we are saying. He knows where we are developmentally and what things we might ask for even though we actually should be asking for something else.

Prayer is such a powerful tool and blessing that we have been given. I love that we are able to use our own words and express how we are truly feeling to a Heavenly Father who is always listening. So, for now, even though I am still trying to figure out some of the details of prayer, I am trying to not overthink it and just say what I feel like I want to say, knowing that the Teacher will know exactly what I am trying to say and will answer my prayers exactly in the way that they need to be answered.