Around this time each year, I take a sort of spiritual inventory and try to be more conscious about asking for help. I'm talking about the big kind of help here, what some of us call prayer. (In fact, one friend's creative first response, when prayer is suggested, is to loudly shout the word "Help!" as she turns imploringly toward the sky.)

My husband and I tried to connect our children with this vital resource from the moment we first held them. Our toddler daughter, following surgery for a birth defect, returned from the recovery room swathed in medical tubing, looking lost in a cagelike crib that prevented us from reaching or touching her.

"Please say prayers," her tiny, post-anesthesia voice croaked as we hung over her, feeling helpless. Not quite 3, and she already knew exactly what to do first in any uncertain situation.

When her younger brother came along, we whispered prayers into his tiny ears, too. Both children also saw our own prayers as a part of daily life. ("Thank you for being quiet now. Mommy is praying.")

But one day 20 years ago, our small son showed me that using prayer and having confidence in it are very different things.

It was a wintry March and I was driving a pretty exciting sports car that my husband's brother had loaned us while our own car was in the shop. As I was driving to pick up our son at his preschool, it started to snow. At first, it was just a pretty coating on the trees, but by the time I reached his school, wet snow was coming down fast and had covered the roads.

I picked up our son, and as we pulled away from the school, seatbelts safely fastened, the big racing tires on that car sent it into a frightening spin. After I regained control, I realized that it was going to be very difficult to drive home on twisting back roads that day. And I was scared. I remember saying something out loud that was surely a prayerful plea, probably a lot like my friend's quick-on-the-draw, one-word shout for help.

In the rear-view mirror, I saw my son fold his hands, drop his head, and remain silent during that 20-minute crawl that usually took 10. When we reached our driveway, he released a large exhalation of relief and asked, "Is it OK to stop praying now?"

I looked at him, astonished, and realized that this was what he'd been doing as I'd struggled to get us home safely. And of course, his 5-year-old's literal logic simply knew that those prayers had done their job, right?

I nodded, still dazed, as I thanked him.

The prayer he had used is one that many Baha'is throughout the world employ when faced with challenges: "Is there any Remover of difficulties save God? Say: Praised be God! He is God! All are His servants, and all abide by His bidding!"

This was a somewhat long prayer for such a small soul to have committed to memory. He referred to it at the time as the "e-mover."

The next day, we were out on errands together when I discovered that I'd parked the car over a patch of black ice that made the wheels spin uselessly when I tried to back out of the parking space. Hearing my sigh of frustration, my son again folded his hands and bowed his head without a word.

As I watched him in some amazement, a bright-yellow sand truck turned the corner and stopped beside the car. The driver climbed out, fetched a shovel from the side, scooped some sand out of the truck, and spread it on either side of the car's tires without a word. Stunned, I at least had the presence of mind to roll down the window and thank him before he drove away.

My son looked up from his silent entreaty, flashed a huge smile, and said, "Prayer really works, huh? Now we can go!"

Of course, prayer is also more than asking for help. Today, my son's a young adult who often combines making music, sketching and journaling with however he chooses to commune with God to feed his spirit, try to hear guidance, and figure things out. But that 5-year-old's faith in prayer has been with him ever since those icy days when he experienced it to be so literally effective.

My husband and I still pray for our children (now grown) every day, and they know this. But of more assurance to my mother's heart is that they learned early that everything benefits when prayer is applied to it, that prayer, and the answer that is promised if we pray, can come in many forms, and that every answer, whatever its outward appearance, is a blessing.

What my son reminded me on those wintry days is that the degree of faith we have in prayer has a direct bearing on the flow of those blessings, and our ability to see them.

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Phyllis Edgerly Ring, mother of two, is a writer and editor. Her current book project addresses how adults can recognize and nurture children's spiritual nature. She is a former program director at Green Acre Baha'i School in Eliot, Maine, and has been a member of the Baha'i Faith for more than 30 years. Email her at {email columns@bahai.us}columns@bahai.us{/email}. See the website of the Baha'is of the United States for more information. © copyright 2007 by Phyllis Edgerly Ring