"Mom? Mom? Mom?" by Cassandra Poppe (CatholicMom.com) Via Freeimages.com (2009), CC0 Public Domain

We were in the car, headed South. On a 12+ hour trip. Again.

And from the back seat came a little voice. “Mom?”

“Yes, Marialina,” I sighed.

“Umm – I am hungry.”

“Mom?” Fulton piped in, “May I have another Lego pack?”

“OK, kids,” I sighed, “You know the drill. No snacks until the thirties. And I just handed you a Lego pack – it is not time for another one yet!"

Jay, my husband, chuckled – which triggered my automatic ’eyebrow’ response.

“What’s so funny?” I asked.

“You. The kids. Car trips. It is always the same thing. ‘Mom! Mom!’” He mocked the children’s voices.

I laughed. “Yeah – it’s crazy!”

Since we had already reached the half-way point of our trip, we decided that on our way home, I would keep a Request Tracker to see who was asked and what the general category of requests were. Just for fun. But what started out as an amusing time-killer turned into a rather interesting demonstration of theology in action.

Take a moment to look at the results of my Request Tracker. What do you see?

"Mom? Mom? Mom?" by Cassandra Poppe (CatholicMom.com) Copyright 2017 Cassandra Poppe. All rights reserved.

On the surface, I saw that my husband, by far, had much more time to ponder the universe and the higher concerns of life.

I mean, just look at the numbers! If I were paid $5 for every time a child said, “Mom” I could have bought a plane ticket to Galveston and back and avoided all those questions!

Now let’s take a closer look at the kinds of requests each of us received.

Dad: His questions were mostly time and technical related questions. They naturally went to him for questions such as “Are we there yet?” “How much longer?” and “How did the Earth first start to spin” type of stuff.

Mom: My questions were more about immediate needs and comfort issues. Potty breaks, snacks, temperature adjustments, miscellaneous thoughts that pop into their little heads, and (my personal favorite) tattling/whining about the various injustices occurring in the back of the van.

And we began to wonder – is this what prayer sounds like to God? And Our Lady?

As Catholics, we are generally encouraged to take it to the Queen. Go to Our Lady with our wants and needs, whereby she will take our requests and either present them to God in the most effective way possible, or distribute whatever graces she has at her disposal herself.

We go to her for the little things. Or the immediate things. Such as an increase in patience as we tend to a toddler who is having a tantrum.

Our prayers to God, however, tend to be a little bigger in scope. Not that we never ask Our Lady for help in big events, or never ask God for help in the littleness of our lives. Because I know all too well I have prayed to them both for the same things in the past. But the general pattern has certainly been established, both in real life application and in prayer. At least in the Poppe household!

If you did a Request Tracker for a day, what would yours look like? Do your children tend to approach you for certain things and their father for other things?

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Have you noticed that you tend to go to only God or only Our Lady for certain requests? Why do you go to Our Lady at all – is it a matter of feeling like you are pestering the Father or because you feel Our Lady can better obtain the things for which you pray?

Share with me why you think this might be!

Copyright 2017 Cassandra Poppe