A Prayer For Our School-Aged Children

 

Dear Lord,

We lift to you the children of our home. We pray for your protection as they move about their day in a new school year.  May each one be an asset to their classroom- an ambassador for you in words and actions. Give each one courage to be a light in this world (Matthew 5:14).

I pray that you will fill my child with respect for their teacher, classmates, and school. May learning be a joy and friendships be rich. Give our children a desire to do well daily, and may they see their efforts rewarded in good grades and reputation. 

Help our household to run with a schedule that allows both productivity and decompression. I pray my husband and I are our children’s greatest supporters of their education. Remind us to praise and encourage when needed.  Enable us to keep education a high priority in this coming year.

Thank you, Lord, for the gift of school.  We know that our children will benefit immensely from tireless work and organization of teachers. We pray for the teachers and leaders of our district, and ask for their protection and safety. May their decisions benefit all, and may their compassion run deep.  Amen!

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A Prayer for Marriage

 

Dear Father- 

You are Creator and Keeper of marriages. Today, I lift to you all believing couples of this generation. I pray that we are an example of real love~ as a model of Christ and His church.  

Give us intention in our words and tones. Allow us to purposefully give time to one another in communication and affection.  May we show our children stable, strong, and steadfast love in our homes.  

Help my husband and I to be friends with each other. Instill joy into our daily relationship.  May our actions show the priorities that mean most to us: 1) God 2) Marriage 3) Children.

Help us to be excellent forgivers and may we commit to pray together to build a foundation of Your truths in our home.  Renew our love and commitment to each other and may we always seek to bless our spouses.

Help us, God, to get this relationship right so that our children inherit a legacy of lasting, ever-growing love. ❤️

In Jesus’ name,

Amen!

“Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up. Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm. But how can one keep warm alone?”

‭‭Ecclesiastes‬ ‭4:9-11‬ ‭NIV‬‬

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.” This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church. However, each one of you also must love his wife as he loves himself, and the wife must respect her husband.”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭5:21-29, 31-33‬ ‭NIV‬‬

Photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash

Mom, a.k.a.”The Fun Factory”

 

This image has come up on my Facebook feed a few times over the years. I bought into it HARD for a long time. I struggle with it, still! Since I teach and have summers off, I do tend to plan something fun for every available day I can. I am a FUN-SEEKER.  I am also a kid-lover. My kids lie high on my priority list, but hear me out, maybe too high some days.  

Almost to the point of letting everything else fall to the wayside, I delight in my kids. June is usually the most accelerated, fast-paced month for us.  It’s like I have been granted freedom and I don’t know how to behave! 

That’s not a crime, I know.  Other working moms would love the chance to fun-seek and love on their children every day of their summer break. But, it’s tiring. It’s too much when I look around and feel drowned in the home responsibilities, as well. (Also, not top priority. 😜)

My laundry room, my bedroom, the garage—— okay, like every room— has a mess. More accurately, an explosion of sorts can be found in multiple spots. Our kids have a way of working on Legos, Kinetic sand, Barbies, and watercolor in a span of 3 hours— all on the dining room table!

More notable than the house,  it’s when I start to feel depleted mentally, physically, and spiritually, that I know I need to reel back and lean into God, and recalibrate the priorities of this life.  When I am too tired in the morning to wake and do my devotions or pray for those on my list, some adjustments are necessary.  

Mamas, it’s a lie to believe that our time with the kids at home must be made to be exciting or memorable 24 hours a day. Read it again. 

Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that freedom?  

I just read another blog post about doing the dishes, and forgetting the guilt…. the author wrote, “Work must be done. We can’t live in disarray. Or, at least, my personality struggles there. And it, again, is teaching our kids the value of order, chores, responsibility and stewardship when we take care of things around us.”  She is so spot-on! Her words resonated with me. I don’t have to pay attention to my kids every waking hour, other jobs have to be taken care of, which allows me to teach by example.

And if my kids have a slew of fun memories of a pool, play dates, a theme park, and campfires, that is super… but in my book, it’s not everything.

The search for fun is not what the 18-year timeline is about.  

What matters to me is that they walk out of the house and into the world knowing a mom and dad who instilled faith in Jesus and demonstrated love to others consistently.  I would love mine to remember their mom getting into God’s word and making THAT time a priority over anything else before the day began. 

I would also have to assume that social media does us NO favors as moms in this topic. You see all of your mom friends and acquaintances going here and there, and feel that your highlight reel should be just as adventurous. 

Really, the notion that you have your kids for 18 years may be true, but for their 19th, or 25th, or 40th year, they are still your kids... 

Lord willing, you will have more memories to make in the many years beyond.   The pressure to believe that you must accomplish memory-making daily is false. I certainly don’t remember every fun moment of my childhood, and there were plenty. 

So yes, relish the years. 

But for me, I have to make the main the MAIN thing….. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.  And all of these things shall be added unto you.”  Matthew 6:33

The June party train is slowing to a halt, and I can crave more of what matters in this life. I am so grateful to grandparents who have sleepovers and camping trips so that the kids make their memories elsewhere! Mom,  a.k.a “the fun-factory”, does not resign, I just need to reevaluate our schedules and my well-being!  The turn of the July calendar brings vacation for us, but I hope for more balance in this thing called motherhood. 

Can I get an ‘Amen’?!!!