License plate prayers
I love a good car game. You know, the type of game that is played while traveling from place to place, designed exclusively to pass the time? Growing up, my brother and I would play the “car color” game. It was a simple one. Each player picks a color and every time you see a car that color, you get a point. My brother, who was much smarter than me, learned that in the late 1980s, brown was the most common color. So, he always called brown. He also never lost a game of the car color game.
While I can’t say I invented it (although who knows, maybe I did), my favorite car game today is the license plate game. It works in a state like Iowa where many plates have three letters at the beginning. The goal is to come up with a creative and often-times absurd three word sentence using only those letters. There are no points awarded, the goal is to be creative.
Example: my wife’s car has PMP, so you could say, “Pickles maneuvering patiently.” Or my car has a PCH, “People chasing horses.” My son, Miles, and I got very excited the other day when we saw a plate that had MMN. Magnificent Miles Niethammer, he said. I corrected him, the second M stood for Mark.
It is a great game, and my family has a blast with it.
A woman I once got to serve as pastor years and years ago loved license plates because she saw them as opportunities to pray for people. At every stop sign or light, she would find a plate and think of someone she knew with those initials. She would then say a prayer of thanks to God for that person and if she hadn’t spoken to them in a while, she would call them that night or at the very least, write them a card.
I’ve never forgotten that practice, and lately I’ve tried to borrow it. The truth is, most of us are surrounded by small windows of unclaimed time — the drive to work, the wait at a stoplight, the walk to get the mail — moments we usually fill with nothing at all, or with worry. What if those became moments of prayer instead?
Think about it: who haven’t you talked to in a while? Not because anything went wrong, life just got busy, and the months turned into a year, and now it feels almost awkward to reach out. God doesn’t need a special occasion for you to think of someone with love. A stoplight will do. So will a license plate.
Here’s my invitation: the next time you’re behind the wheel, let those letters on the plate ahead of you become a prayer instead of a puzzle. And if a name comes to mind you haven’t spoken to lately — call them tonight, thank God for the people in your world that have had an impact on you.
Sue Grove
For my sister and me it was the cow game. Each person has a side. You count the cows as you pass by on your side. If you come to a cemetery on your side all the cows die and you have to start over. I like your game better!
Marcia Willi
Pastor Mark, what a great idea! A good way to reach out to loved ones who you may not talk to frequently