Prayerenting

PRAYERENTING (for everyone with children in their lives)

You didn’t read it wrong, and I didn’t spell it wrong. It says Prayer-enting!

My mom was a prayerent. In her childhood she learned God is all-powerful, but had no idea shecould talk to Him until her mid-teens. From that time, she had complete faith that a loving, powerful God cared, and would hear every prayer.

She prayed for me every day of my life. She prayed over every facet of my life: my health, appetite, education, choices, work, friends, my husband, our children...

The sense of loss I had the day she died was not only for her presence and friendship. The cry of my heart was, “Who will ever pray for me the way my mom did?”

But sometime during the second year of missing her, a revelation came to me. Mom’s prayers were not only for the day on which she prayed. They were for every single day of my life. They were forever.

That’s the power of Prayerenting. Those of us with children in our care might feel as though we’re trying to juggle 15 greased monkeys while balancing on a glass ball. On a ramp. How can we hold it together? We can’t. But if we go to the One who has flung the planets and stars into space and who still holds every galaxy on course—and who loves us beyond imagining—He can hold it together. He delights in giving His children good things. He wants us to consult Him.

When we make prayer a way of life, we can cover a child’s today, tomorrow, the next tomorrow and every tomorrow after, whether we are still here or not.

God does not stamp “expired” on our prayers.

In as brief a time as it takes to inhale, we can breathe a prayer for the children in our lives. God knows how pressed we are. He doesn’t slap us for not spending an hour on our knees. Emmanuel means “God withus.” He is as close as our heart’s beat.

Exhale words that will make a difference.

Set the heavens in motion on behalf of our children.

What power there can be in a prayer breathed!

Each day I’ll post a 1-2 sentence prayer on my Facebook page. Just scroll down this page and look for the posts marked with "Prayerenting" in the Facebook post feed.

I’ll pray the prayers too. My plan is to go back and pray earlier ones over again. Not that God hasn’t heard them. I need to remember He’s heard them. Or perhaps I need to be persistent. Come with me on this Prayerenting journey. Over the days and months, I’ll cover every facet of our children’s lives that I can think of, including our own needs as Prayerents.