Organized Prayer

Developing a prayer life is so hard. After we come to know the Lord, by whom are we taught to pray? Hopefully by our parents, but that isn't the reality for many of us. More often in churches and in Christian circles, it's just assumed that we all do this, and we all know how.

It's not unusual, though, for even a seasoned Christian to fail in this area. There are starts, stops, excuses, and finally, giving up for a while.

The good news is that the more we pray, the more we want to pray. Whatever your previous prayer history, start now with a concrete goal, but not too lofty the first week, lest you get discouraged. True change comes after we plan for it. So decide on a goal, or start with this one below, and then add days or minutes to it after one successful week.

First Goal: 20 minutes, 3 times this week

Jump in, get started, and pray for God to light a fire in your heart for prayer.

  

The Holy Spirit will speak to you about what to pray, but a simple structure to help you get started is the ACTS acronym.

A = Adoration (start by praising God)

C = Confession of sins

T = Thanking God

S = Supplication (prayer requests)

There will always be urgent prayer requests to cover each day, and in addition to those, here are more supplication ideas, organized by day. You can cover all these in one day, or once a week, depending on how long your prayer time is.

I think mothers of young children have the most difficulty setting aside devotional time every day, but with God's help, it can be done.

Monday - Your Children (Future & Present Issues)

~ their Christian walks

~ their future marriages

~ their physical health

~ their future spouses and in-laws

~ your future grandchildren

~ humility for all

~ strong relationships with you

~ your daily discipleship efforts

~ any heart issues that stand out

~ their schools and teachers and peers, if applicable

 Prayer does not fit us for the greater work, prayer is the greater work. -- Oswald Chambers

Tuesday - Your Marriage

~ communication skills

~ humility

~ physical health

~ purity

~ selflessness

~ the heart to submit to your husband; your husband's heart to lead

~ biblical view of finances

 There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God. -- Brother Lawrence

Wednesday - Your Relatives

~ salvation and/or disciplined Christian walk

~ physical health

~ relationships

~ biblical view of finances

We hear it said that a man will suffer in his life if he does not pray; I question it. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God within him, which is nourished not by food but by prayer...Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished. -- Oswald Chambers

Thursday - Neighborhood & Workplace & Country

~ salvation

~ relationships

~ physical health

~ evangelical opportunities

~ for political leaders to know and follow God

~ for whole-country revival; for hearts to be convicted about abortion

~ that Christians will vote

Friday - Church & Missionaries & Personal Ministries

~ salvation of fellow churchgoers

~ church children & teens & singles

~ pastor & his family

~ disciplined Christian walk for congregation

~ evangelical opportunities

~ strength & courage

~ biblical view of finances

~ ministry health & effectiveness

 "I would rather train twenty men to pray, than a thousand to preach; A minister's highest mission ought to be to teach his people to pray." -- MacGregor

Saturday - The struggling; the least of God's people

~ global orphan crisis (and how can I personally help)

~ widows

~ end to human trafficking (and how can I personally help)

~ end to governmental corruption in 3rd world

~ that more Christians will sponsor and write to 3rd world children through Christian sponsorship organizations

~ for the end of abject poverty in the world (Much progress has been made in this in the last 50 years. There will always be poverty, but not necessary abject poverty.)

When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles. When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devil shouts for joy. -- Corrie Ten Boom

Sunday - Your Friendships and Your Own Christian Walk

~ salvation and good health for friends & their families

~ disciplined Christian walks for friends

~ deal with any unconfessed personal sin

~ your prayer life

~ your Bible reading discipline

~ your own health issues

Bless you in this endeavor, and let me know how it goes this week?

Sharing with Works For Me Wednesday at We Are That Family



Reworked post from 2013.

Praying as a Family

 

As I consider my blessings on this Multitude Monday, I'm struck by the immense power of prayer, so maybe God wants me to flesh out that blessing a little today, for your benefit too, I pray?

A while ago I introduced the concept of a family prayer jar. We've used it faithfully since those first posts although our methods have evolved some. We now use index cards cut length-wise into 5 inches by 1 inch "sticks". These are more durable than folded slips of paper. On a larger index card we have the ACTS acronym spelled out for the boys, who take turns with Daddy leading the prayer. We want them to feel confident in leading their families spiritually, and we feel early practice is essential for a smooth transition after marriage.

A - adoration
C - confession
T - thanksgiving
S - supplication (prayer requests)

Using a prayer jar can feel mechanical at times because the prayers are already listed. It may feel as though you're reading something, rather than connecting with the Holy Spirit. But when you go around the table and have each person in turn praise God, then confess, and then say what they're thankful for, it feels more like a connection with the Spirit while still providing children with a model for prayer that is structured and disciplined.

Moreover, the confession part is beneficial to you as a parent. It provides a surprising picture of your child's heart on any given day. You can gauge how much your child is tuning into the Holy Spirit, and you can plan how to further her spiritual growth. And the children can hear how mom and dad struggle and apply grace with a sensitivity beyond their years.

Family prayer accomplishes so much, but perhaps the greatest benefit is how it encourages us to apply grace in our household relationships. We grow in love and in compassion toward our family members, as they humble themselves and speak frankly with the Father.

When all around the table have praised, confessed, and thanked God, we then get to the index card sticks (the supplications).

Don't expect it to look like an adult prayer session, I warn you. It is chaotic at times and not every night runs smoothly; just be consistent and keep your sense of humor. The younger your children, the fewer prayer sticks you'll want to pray at one time. You can color-code your index cards and pray some M-W-F-Sun, and some on Tu-Th-Sat.

We had a prayer stick in there for several months about getting a new van, preferably a larger one to take more kids to church or AWANA. Tomorrow we are purchasing the van I wrote about in the last post, so last night as we prayed through our sticks, we were able to change that one to say, "Thank you God for the new used van!"

We also had one in there for several months about Peter getting a hamster that wouldn't lead to asthma problems. For his January birthday he got a new hamster, this one a boy, since the girls have a stronger body odor. Peter is in hamster heaven with no allergy aggravation! When we get to that prayer stick, we always say, "Thank you God for Peter's new friend Scratchy!"

Slowly, more and more prayers are being answered. We had one in there about Peter's ADHD for over a year, and 2.5 months ago he began a new medication that has changed his life immensely--all of our lives. It's the lowest Prozac dose, prescribed for his OCD, which had become more debilitating. We haven't solved the OCD issue, and that prayer is still in there. But the 10 milligrams of Prozac reacted just right with the 10 milligrams of Strattera, allowing an awesome, godly, very sweet personality to surface--a child I never knew. Peter and I are getting closer and closer, and his relationship with his siblings has never been better.

A side note: If you don't have family members with neurological issues, I just ask that you reserve judgement about giving medication to children? Unless you walk a mile in these shoes you don't know what we've lived, and judging is dangerous spiritually. We all judge at times, but it blinds us to what God wants us to learn; we need to pray the tendency away. A brain chemical disorder is not much different than a heart condition, in that healthy living goes a long way, but sometimes medication is needed.

We also had a prayer in our jar about my friend Cheryl's migraines, which she's had for 55 years. Yesterday at church she told me that in the last month, she hasn't had a single migraine!

Nothing builds faith like answered prayer. Prayer is the work of the Christian. We have little control over this life, but we have prayer and it's better than control. Neglect prayer and life feels too overwhelming. Celebrate prayer and make time for it throughout the day, and life is a beautiful faith walk.

On Judgement Day Jesus will say to some self-proclaimed Christians, "I never knew you." We can say a salvation prayer and go to church, but that doesn't mean we know God. Prayer is communing with God and we simply can't neglect it.

Amazing prayer quotes:

"I would rather train twenty men to pray, than a thousand to preach; A minister's highest mission ought to be to teach his people to pray." -- MacGregor

 Prayer does not fit us for the greater work, prayer is the greater work. -- Oswald Chambers

 There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God. -- Brother Lawrence

We hear it said that a man will suffer in his life if he does not pray; I question it. What will suffer is the life of the Son of God within him, which is nourished not by food but by prayer...Prayer is the way the life of God is nourished. -- Oswald Chambers

When a Christian shuns fellowship with other Christians, the devil smiles. When he stops studying the Bible, the devil laughs. When he stops praying, the devil shouts for joy. -- Corrie Ten Boom 

Multitude Monday blessing list: 

Thank you, Father, for...

~ a beautiful relationship with my Peter.

~ a new used van.

~ such a good deal on the van that we were also able to order the computer we needed, and the Teaching Textbooks math CD ROM my children need for the next school year.

~ beautiful sunshine today.

~ a new child at our Bible Study on Saturday. 

~ the guidance and peace in our daily life that prayer allows. 

~ the joy of family movies and popcorn.

~ sons who are growing in Christ, making me more grateful by the day. 

~ a sinus infection much better now with no pain. (They sure can last a long time)

~ hugs from a godly husband.

~ the knowledge that parenting isn't about our performance, but about our devotion to prayer.

Note: I turned off comment moderation because some were having trouble commenting. Your comment should show immediately, and don't worry, that awful word verification thingy won't come up. 

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A Curious Thing About Prayer and Humility

 

I live with five other people, intimately. Much can be learned about human flaws through home observation. Each separate family is uniquely capable of shaping its members through divine appointment. 




What God has brought together, let man not separate. If we want to reach our highest potential in Christ, we'd do well to spend time with our families. It's therapy for free.


As we've prayed together more and more, I've noticed something important. To be humble is not natural. No one wants to acknowledge personal sin before God and man. We can pray very important things easily, but when it comes to a uniquely personal sin we're struggling with, we remain mum. Or we only mention it in private, before God. 


I'm discovering there's a reason the Bible says to confess our sins to each other. I never thought about it much before now, but this is huge. 


James 5:16
Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.



At any given time each person has a long-standing sin the Holy Spirit is working to eradicate--be it anger, ingratitude, idleness, harshness, etc. In our haughtiness, when we ignore the Holy Spirit, the sin persists for a long time. It's the thing we struggle with the most. It's the thing we're least likely to admit to anyone. But as sins go, it isn't necessarily something jaw-dropping, like adultery. 


It's our own Achilles Heal, if you will. It doesn't fit with the image we want to present. At times we fail to see ourselves as we really are, because we're so caught up in our image of ourselves. We know this Achilles Heal makes us an impostor. 


And who wants to be seen as an impostor?


We deceive ourselves into thinking we can take care of it. We try different things with wavering motivation, but always, we fail to eradicate it.


The Humility of God


Noticing this aspect of human nature, I had a discussion with my children about the humility of God. He came to us a helpless baby, though he was God. He let them nail him to a tree, though he was God. He died a slow, agonizing death, though he was God.


His example for us screams this word: Humility


After speaking with them about Jesus humbling himself, I explained how hard it is for us to humble ourselves and admit sin. Heads nodded in response. They get this. 


But if we love God, if we want to be his disciple, we must do this. We must choose humility as Jesus did...go low before our loved ones. Reveal who we really are, so God can make us new.


Peter's been struggling mightily and mumbling prayers begrudgingly lately. He really listened to my words. And then...he said it. Quickly, before he lost his nerve. 


Dear God, Help me with my anger.


Behold, He makes all things new. Hallelujah!

The Prayer Warrior Life: A Prayer System For Busy Moms

Prayer does not fit us for the greater work, prayer is the greater work. 

Oswald Chambers

I've had my fill of personal prayer systems that rely on paper...any kind of paper. It's not durable enough no matter how it's bound, especially when there are curious little ones around wanting to imitate mommy. They're known for taking the books Mommy's reading and hiding them--no, not purposely--in obscure places. The places in which they were last playing let's-pretend-we're-a-mommy. Except that hours later they can't remember where it was they were playing let's-pretend-we're-a-mommy. 


Or is that just my house? 


Are you looking for a practical, durable prayer system--one that's portable, even, and can be kept on high shelves when necessary? 


You're supposed to say yes.


$1.99 Mead 4-pocket index card keeper, holds up to 100 3x5 index cards, stretchy band to keep it closed, sticky labels to label compartments 


$3.99 assorted colored index cards (I bought both these products at Marc's discount grocery store, but the price on the card holder was only ten cents cheaper than the Amazon price above.)

Try card stock! In the form of index cards! Carried in a holder with compartments! 


You know I'm really excited when I start breaking important writing rules. Like the one about no exclamation points.  


Are you kidding me? A durable, portable prayer system? Of course the exclamation points are necessary. My three-year-old Beth likes to crinkle up her nose and eyes, put her hands on her hips, and say, "Are you kidding me!"


I bought colored index cards to go with mine. Below I'll detail a handy system you can use with the card holder and index cards. The blank sticky labels that come with the card holder will be needed to label the compartments using day(s) of week. 

1st compartment: Pink cards = Pray these every day

These cards will list urgent prayers, such as those for salvation, on-going health issues, and critical situations such as job losses and relationship breakdowns

2nd compartment: Green cards = Pray these Tuesday and Thursday

These prayers are for church and country--pastors, leaders, spiritual direction, the economy, family values, pro-life concerns, materialism, wars and critical international situations.

3rd compartment: Blue cards = Pray these Monday, Wednesday, and Friday

These prayers are specifically for our children, our husband, ourselves, and our own extended family, but not salvation, health, or critical issues, since they are covered on the pink cards (every day prayers). Include issues such as sibling rivalry, our children's spiritual habits and growth, their purity, specific heart issues you've noticed, their study habits, their friends, their future spouse/marriage, in-laws, and children. For husbands, perhaps prayers for strength as they lead the family, purity of thought and action, consistency in their spiritual habits, wisdom and holiness in the workplace, and parenting strength and wisdom for them as fathers, as they build up their sons and help them become men, and for wisdom and gentleness as they parent their girls. 

Remember to include prayers for your own spiritual growth, consistency of habits, purity, strength, and stamina. I always forget myself when I pray. How silly is that? 

4th compartment: Peach cards = Pray these Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday

These prayers will be for your friends, neighbors, and church family, but not for salvation or critical issues, since those belong on the pink every-day prayer cards.

This is just a sample. There are many different ways you can do it. When we pray before each meal, we always pray for our Compassion children's food supply and for their salvation. We also pray for them using the prayer jars after every meal. In my personal prayer system, I have their needs on pink cards, since their abject poverty makes all of their needs urgent ones. When we get their wonderful letters in the mail, there are never any pictures of their homes or living circumstances. It's easy to forget the shocking living conditions they endure on a daily basis. They desperately need our prayers!

There you have it. A durable, portable, small, hide-it-from-little-hands prayer system. Ready. Set. Go pray!

Photo: Simplicity and Innocence, by John Ernest Breun

The Prayer Warrior Life: Revising Your System

An updated note on prayer jars: 

Each family member here had their own prayer jar for a time. The first person done with dinner would start on their jar, praying each prayer aloud, and then the second person done with dinner would do theirs, and on it went around the table. Husband and I helped the three- and five-year-old, neither of whom read independently yet.

Peter, always the first one done eating, had trouble listening politely by the time the girls started praying. The whole process tortured him, rather than blessed him--ants in the pants, so to speak.

Also, the jars took up too much room in the center of the table, which is also home to pencil, crayon, eraser, and napkin containers.

And lastly, we tended to wait too long to throw away or file old prayers, and the jars become quite packed, making the process take too long.

So this week we revised the system.


Now we have just three prayer jars in the middle of the table--a breakfast, lunch, and dinner jar. Daddy is only with us for the dinner prayer jar, but that's okay. It still works out better to have a shorter process, three times a day.

Some prayers, such as those for our Compassion children, and health prayers for our friends and ourselves, are in all three jars so we can pray them three times a day.

It works like a charm this way, except that each child wants a turn to pray. I solved that by having Paul pray the breakfast-jar prayers, Peter the lunch prayers, and the girls share the dinner jar prayers, when Daddy is here to help me with everything that goes on at the table.

My husband and I follow up with impromptu prayers, which are not in the jars.

Praying for Internet Friends:

Most of my friends are online friends. Since moving to Ohio nearly seven years ago, I've added two more children and homeschooling to my schedule. We avoid over-scheduling, so we're not a busy family in the running-around sense. But the care of children? That keeps us hopping, leaving little time for anything else! Even if I had a friend here, I don't know how I'd connect with her, except through e-mail.

Hint: When the cell phone rings I head for the bathroom or go outside the door, praying it's a short call. Being on the phone is so hard, with little ones around!

Meeting people is difficult through church because we've either been in a mega-church, or in smaller churches that don't schedule many potlucks or other mixers. Small-group Bible studies are the main thing nowadays in the church set, but husband's schedule makes those impossible to manage.

All that to say, I cherish my online friends, probably more than most people.

Some I've grown to love because we've shared joys and sorrows and read each other's blogs or e-mails for a few years now, and others I've come to love because our stories are so similar, that true understanding exists between us.

Some online friends drift away, like in real life. But praise God, new friends come along here too, once in a while! Thank you!

On a weekly basis at least, new prayer requests come in from the online world. Some are direct appeals for prayer, and others are prayers the Holy Spirit prompts me to pray. Nursing a child at least three times a day makes it fairly easy to remember these requests, but lately the volume increased.

So my new method is to keep a piece of paper taped to the computer and a pen handy at the desk here. Some of the online-friend prayers get transferred to our prayer jars at the table, and others, more private, are transferred to my personal prayer journal.

Taking the time to really make prayer happen for you? It's priceless. Prayer truly changes things. Not only for your friends, but also for you.

Prayer teaches love. It gives birth to love. It is love. Giving of yourself always = love.

For other posts on prayer--there are a lot of them--find my label prayer series on the sidebar.

photo credit

The Prayer Warrior Life: Mother to Mother

Proverbs 11:14 Where there is no guidance, a people falls, but in an abundance of counselors there is safety.

Proverbs 17:17 A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity.

I think it's no accident that I gather more mother-to-mother prayer requests than any other type. Motherhood is a blessing and a battle and guess who wants us to fail? We must uphold each other. Who understands our burdens better?

I have so many mothers I'm praying for that I have to organize them as one group during prayer time, lest I forget someone. I consider this a good thing! God himself guides our prayer time. Prayer changes us, more than prayer changes circumstances. He knows that praying for other mothers makes us better mothers.

Can God work in a mother's life without our prayers? Yes. God doesn't need our prayers but he loves the fellowship with us. And our mother friends feel our prayers! They may not know they were just prayed for, but they do receive a filling from the Holy Spirit.

I have a bold belief to share here: The more mothers you commit to praying for, the more prayer support you'll receive in your own life. I believe this. Think of it...more Spirit fillings! Don't we all crave those? Desperately need them, even?

As you organize your mother-to-mother prayers think of your own failings and assume that other mothers struggle similarly. This will give you a basic outline as you pray, and as mothers contact you with specific requests, add those to your notes.

Pray that she'll be able to:

- nurture and disciple her children sufficiently

- read her Bible and pray

- provide gentle but firm discipline

- make time for nutritious meals

- balance loving her husband with loving her children

- take care of her own health

- avoid idleness and use her time wisely

- avoid self-pity regarding repetitive chores and child training

- that she'll count her blessings and give thanks for each day, seeing it as a gift

Source for Scripture
Source for photo

To read more of my prayer journey, check out Into a Life of Prayer: A Journey Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

To read even more, check out The Prayer Warrior Life part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; part 5, part 6, Part 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14

A sweet friend, Amy, wrote guests posts for us, telling of her prayer journey: Vol. 1, and Vol. 2, and Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Vol. 5

The Prayer Warrior Life: Recognizing the Power

So, it's well established that I don't like technology. Right?


Imagine my delight this morning when I learned that the quiet, master-bedroom computer, at which the boys do their Teaching Textbooks math CD Rom, had gone bonkers. Bonkers would be non-tech speak for a situation in which all programs and websites are much larger than the screen, so that you have to continually scroll back and forth to use them.


Miss Mary, who uses Caillou's Preschool and a Dora program on Nick Jr., worked her magic yesterday. If anything goes wrong with her programs, she starts getting into anything and everything on the computer itself, troubleshooting her way into a mess.


We couldn't skip math, so Momma had to do some troubleshooting of her own, getting into the control panel to figure out what Mary did to the resolution. 


It wasn't so simple, and an hour later, I went into total whining mode, all the while wondering if my "babysitters" were keeping Beth out of trouble. I'd already been interrupted at least 10 times, which is standard. 


How I can think at all during the day, is a testimony to the workings of the Momma Mind, miraculously arranged by our Creator to match our job description.


Trust me, if you leave your husband alone with your four children while you spend eighty minutes grocery shopping, you'll return to find out that the Daddy Mind doesn't quite match the stay-at-home job description. The other option--shopping with four children--is sometimes preferred. He's a great Daddy and when they're outside for the whole eighty minutes, all is great when I return, with the children mighty blessed by their fun-filled Daddy. It's the house + kids combination that doesn't work for him. A multi-tasking Momma he ain't. 


Often when I type something in the living room during the day--either a post or an e-mail--my kids are right by me, kicking a ball down the hall and making all manner of exciting background noise--apparently thinking that when Momma takes a break, they get one too. Since it's too rainy for recess today, ball games down the hallway will make for some nice Monday Mania.  


Don't you wish you could come for tea?


Now you know why typos are so common.


The last I looked, they all had some Goldfish at the table, counting them by ones and fives for the preschoolers' benefit. Yes, that's right, when the main teacher is unavailable, the older ones step right up to the task, creating school out of life.


So back to my computer problem. In desperation, I prayed and asked all the kids to pray. 


Notice how I didn't pray up front, before I began tinkering? Big mistake. 


Why, oh why, do we believing humans fail to get God on our side right away?


After we prayed, I got back into the screen resolution thingy, and lo and behold, I fixed it immediately (based on the size of the icons anyway).


Following that, I got into e-mail to see if we could view an entire message without scrolling right and left, and then into a website to see if Paul could read his Mr. Popper's Penguins comprehension questions. (Scholastic's About This Book gives a synopsis. Both boys love this 1938 Newberry Honor book.)


Bingo. Fixed.


There was one new e-mail, from one of my online friends, saying, "Just prayed for your sweet girl and your family." 


This was such a powerful reminder today. When we pray for others, it really does impact them. Even if the prayer doesn't take away a particular problem, it can change the perception and negative impact of the problem, so that grace rains down on the family, right then and there, as the prayer is being uttered. 


When we pray during the day with the prayer jar, or alone at night, I don't think either the children, or the adults, really comprehend the power of the words, or of the act itself. Prayer with children around, either private prayer or that done corporately, can seem so disorganized and interrupted and insane. 


But God hears through screaming fits, through nighttime wake-ups that interrupt our flow....through anything. Our prayers are sacred, even when they feel like the opposite. The worst thing we can do is think, not today, it's too insane around here. 


Someone on your list really needs the grace-raining your prayers will bring. 


Thank you, sweet friend! 


To read more of my prayer journey, check out Into a Life of Prayer: A Journey Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

To read even more, check out The Prayer Warrior Life part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; part 5, part 6, Part 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

A sweet friend, Amy, wrote guests posts for us, telling of her prayer journey: Vol. 1, and Vol. 2, and Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Vol. 5


photo credit

The Prayer Warrior Life: A Mother's Prayers

I may not know you personally, but I know what your days are like.


If you're a momma you work hard, often into the wee hours of the morning, investing in your children emotionally, with hugs and loving words, and physically, with broccoli and oranges and apple slices. You wash, fold, and hang, vacuum mud and leaves, sweep crumbs, Lego Creator pieces, and Light Bright pegs.


You worry about fevers, wheezes, infected cuts. You devour parenting books in five minute chunks while on the toilet. You read parenting blogs to make sure you're understanding it all, and to commiserate with other moms in the trenches.


You take them to the library, to museums, and buy them educational toys. You teach, correct, repeat. Teach, correct, repeat. You devise systems for chores and other responsibilities.


Your children are your life. You're loving them sacrificially, giving everything.


But, could you be forgetting something? Maybe your own fallibility? And the Lord's power?


Are you, perhaps, forgetting.....prayer?


Pray for your children. Pray for their hearts, that they'll belong to the Lord. Pray they'll offer themselves as living sacrifices...laying down their lives for Him, for His purposes.


Isn't this what you really want? 


You want them to heal when they hurt, yes. You want them to do well in school, yes. You want them to work hard and accomplish, yes.


But don't forget their hearts.


The greatest mother--the one with whom He is well pleased--is the one who mothers on her knees, praying for her children's hearts.


He wants their hearts, not letters behind their name, showing accomplishment. He wants your heart--not a mother who pats herself on the back, each time her children shine.


Humble yourself. Give Him the gift of your heart...their hearts.


Pray.


To read more of my prayer journey, check out Into a Life of Prayer: A Journey Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7

To read even more, check out The Prayer Warrior Life part 1; part 2; part 3; part 4; part 5, part 6, Part 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

A sweet friend, Amy, wrote guests posts for us, telling of her prayer journey: Vol. 1, and Vol. 2, and Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Vol. 5


photo credit