Start Praying for Your Children With This Life-Changing Prayer
The new school year always prompts me to be more intentional about praying for my kids as I send them into the world. If you can relate—if you want to be more consistent when it comes to praying for your children—this is for you today.
I’ve been praying for my little ones for over a decade now.
Over the years, I’ve discovered one powerful prayer that has changed the way I parent and the way I encourage my kids.
Start Praying for Your Children Like This . . .
Before I share the prayer I pray for my kids every single day, let me invite you into the evening God led me to this prayer:
It’s mid-August.
The school bus will soon carry our oldest child down the road for the first day of school.
We lie in her bed in the too-early darkness, and she begins a familiar conversation about why I won’t homeschool her and how much she’ll miss long days spent playing in the creek.
I try to point to the positives, but in all honesty, I also understand.
I understand that the freedom of summer dies hard for the child who would rather catch frogs in boggy swamps than spend full days beneath fluorescent lights.
Little Bekah reminds me of the struggles she faced last year: How much harder second grade was than first; the big math test that didn’t go well; how much homework she faced each night; and how it all started to feel too much like work and not so much like fun.
After doing my best to encourage her, tucking her under the butterfly bedspread, and turning out the light, I go downstairs and stare at my list of eight prayers for the start of a new school year.
I made the list last summer when I was desperate to cover my sweet child in prayer.
Tonight, I read through the prayers, one by one, and it’s like I’m reminding myself of what matters along this journey.
The Prayer Your Child Needs Most
What matters most is not the grade that comes home on the report card.
It is not perfect attendance or perfect behavior.
What matters most is that every trial my child faces and every hardship that comes leads my child to find her hope in Christ and not in external circumstances.
What matters most is that every trial my child faces and every hardship that comes leads my child to find her hope in Christ and not in external circumstances. #backtoschool #prayer #parenting Click To TweetI want my child to know that no matter what happens, whether good or bad, her hope is in the fact that Jesus is with her.
We’re not so different from our children.
We can easily put our hope in pleasant circumstances.
When everyone is healthy and sleeping through the night, when the finances are in order, when our husbands stop working crazy late hours, when the dishes in the sink are washed and the house is in order, then we can finally rest.
Begin Praying for Your Children With This Insight
Sadly, if healthy kids, intact finances, present husbands, and orderly homes are our sources of refuge and comfort, we’re bound to be tossed by the winds of our everyday lives. Circumstances change, and none of us are immune to bad days and bad seasons.
Only when we find our hope in the fact that Jesus is with us do we find hope that cannot be shaken. Jesus with you is the one promise in your life that cannot be taken away from you (see Romans 8:38-39).
And so, this is the prayer I pray for my children every single day: Lord, I pray that every hardship of this day will send my precious child running to your arms—that the struggles will help her find her hope in you and you alone.
Let’s pray that our children will learn to experience Jesus as their hope.
Pray that when circumstances go awry, friendships fall apart, teachers are unreasonable, and expectations fall short, our children will learn that they can trust in the One who has promised never to leave them. This prayer will change their lives forever.
Last summer I created a prayer guide for myself: 8 Prayers for the Start of a New School Year. This guide includes 8 prayers for the highs and lows of the upcoming year. Download your free printout by clicking here.
A Devotional Book to Help You Connect With Your Daughter and Grow in Faith Together
Praying for your children is vital. It’s also important to keep the lines of communication open as you teach them the truth in love. Do you want to open the lines of communication with your daughter, connect on deeper levels, laugh together, and grow in your faith together?
Maybe you don’t have a daughter, but you would love to connect with a granddaughter, niece, or younger woman in your life. Perhaps you would love to support a mother-daughter duo you care about.
If any of this resonates with you, I have a tool to help you. My 12-year-old daughter Bekah and I wrote a mother-daughter devotional book together, and it is designed to help moms and daughters connect and grow in faith together. It’s called Girl to Girl: 60 Mother-Daughter Devotions for a Closer Relationship and Deeper Faith.
It includes 60 devotions with Scripture, commentaries from both of us, conversation starters, and even a journaling section. You can buy your paperback or eBook on Amazon right here. 
This book is free on Kindle Unlimited or available to purchase in print:
God wants to work in your life to accomplish what you’ve been unable to do through willpower alone. Lean Into Grace: Let God’s Grace Heal Your Heart, Refresh Your Soul, and Set You Free shares practical ways to experience God’s freedom, healing, power, and presence in your life. Find this life-changing book as a free eBook on Kindle Unlimited or for 12.99 in print right here. (If you do not have Kindle Unlimited, you can try it out with a free three-month trial!) This book will transform your life and revitalize your relationship with the Lord!
