Prayers all around

Here's a cool thing. My brother's family, who I'm living with, is not a member of any sort of structured religion. In many ways, this is a really cool thing. Let me explain. My brother used to be very against my beliefs (or at least I thought), it's mostly against organized religion (we grew up Catholic). My sister-in-law was born into a Jewish family, but to the best of my knowledge, she didn't grow up going to synagogue or anything. They want my niece to grow up with a knowledge of God, so being able to be part of their journey is cool. But I've been gone for most of the big things. Like over Christmas, they started praying before she went to bed. My brother bought her a prayer book and she reads different prayers. She's really done a great job of memorizing them too. But that stirs up emotions from my past. I remember going to church and everyone is rapidly saying, without much emotion, the words to the Lord's prayer, the Apostle's Creed, etc. It seemed to be being said with no emotion. I don't know about God, but I have a hard time with those sort of conversations. So, back to the evening prayers...tonight, I mentioned to my niece that she could talk to God just like she talks to the rest of us. She gives me this puzzled look and shakes her head. Then she says, okay, you do it. Right on. I shared with God some of the days joys, struggles and prayer requests of some friends. Then my brother prayed. And next my sister-in-law. I was fighting the tears, this is a day I've prayed a long time for. When we finished, my brother suggests that we do that more often, so my niece gets used to the idea that you don't need special words to talk to God! Okay, I'm doing that silly Toyota jump right now.