I Can Pray….

                   And, So Can You….Let’s Do… 

 

As I sit here in my office, warming myself with a hot cup of tea and some soft music, I wait and I pray.

My children are growing to that stage where life is a constant challenge of “they are still young enough to need parental guidance (do you ever really outgrow that stage?)” to” they are getting old enough to make some of their own decisions.”

Daughter came in from school, threw in a load of laundry to wash, joined us in our bedroom for a time of sharing and laughter and of doing those private mother-ladder-daughter things which make a bond grow firm and tight and real.  I enjoy the relationship Ian and I have with Madison.  It was not one which came easy, but rather was one forged over time and up and down many hills.  I cherish the lilting laughter which rings from her as she pokes fun at our ways while sharing her heart.

Ours is a relationship built strong on the back of never giving up on one-another.  Mother/daughter both have changed a great deal over the past several years, and for the better, as God would provide.

When your daughter sits at your Poppy-made make-up table, using the last of your eyeliner, looks at you and says, “Mama, one reason I love you so much is that you never gave up on me, even when I knew you would have liked to, even when you were exhausted, even when others would have and did.”

I believe her.

My daughter is not perfect. Nor is her mother.  She is a mosaic of many beautiful and un-beautiful decisions in her life.  But, as God is my Holy witness, I would call her heart one of the greatest seeking hearts I know.  What she wants is to find a way in this hard world to live a tender life.  When you have a tender heart in a world which is hard and non-tender, you struggle. 

I realize that now.

I realize, now, that to mother her means to grow in her the ability to be strong.  There is only one thing a mother can do in that environment and with that hope…and, it is to pray.

So, I do.

I have always prayed for my children.  Always.  But, now it is different.  Now I pray with great surrender.  I finally understand that if I truly want my children to be who God intended, I cannot hoard them to myself like a hungry person in a famine.  I must surrender them wholly.

Surrender them to God.

And, so as I sit in my chair, listening to my music and wondering when my boys who spent the night at a friends house will be in, I pray.

I hate it when my children spend the night over at their friends homes.  Agreed.  That does not sound very friendly or faithful of me, but it is the truth.  I long for the days where a night over to a friend’s home meant parents monitoring the whole evening, pizza being eaten, bedtime being midnight in sleeping bags on the floor with a parent sleeping on the couch.  No matter which family they stayed with, I knew both parents, their cell phone numbers, their morals and their standards.  Most, were God-fearing, loving families who guarded my children as if they were precious treasures.

Now, a night over to a friend’s home means a night at a home where I might only know the parent’s from what others tell me or a shared sports experience.  While I still do the “standard” phone call to parents and checking out of where the parent lives.  I still check to see if the parents will be home and if they will be there all night.  I check out their views on alcohol, drugs and sex.   It’s different.

My boys will be eighteen in May.  18.  E I G H T E E N.

An age where everything you hoped to have taught them is being put to the test on a daily basis and in challenging ways you never imagined. 

The impact of that radiates on my heart in a way which I can only express in one way.

Prayer.

We have an open home where our Young-McKenzie family theme is, “better the ugly truth than a pretty lie.”

My children know that my number one non-negotiable is to lie to me.  True gut is a sacred phrase and a way of life at “112”.

As a result, I know things about them which I am proud of, which I am grateful for and even some of which has caused me to lose sleep at night and strands of hair on my brow.

They are good children.  I claim that goodness.  I repeat that goodness to them.

Often.

Because, I realize that it is a journey we are on in this life.  And, no one decision defines the man.  But, it can impact a life.

If you ask my children, they will tell you, “Mama prays that whatever we do is caught.”  I know this because I do and they have experienced it over and over again.  I pray that the good they do is “caught”….the times of sharing and caring and loving and kindness be caught and reflected and imprinted on their hearts so that they know they are doing what is good and right and can follow in that path.

Likewise, I also pray if they are in a situation where they could be at risk of making poor decisions, that they get caught…and, caught tightly. 

NEVER will I stop as long as I breathe….praying that their hearts are not this worlds, but are HIS.

I will never stop because I know that the only real and true and faithful thing I can do to love my children is to love them through prayer.  It is a mother’s journey and one of the greatest ways God has to make Himself real to a mother.

A child’s life is the humble lesson God teaches their mother.

A child’s life is God’s way of reminding a mother of who is in control, and that it is not her.

Surrender is what I have learned from the lives of my children.  Just as I could not determine when they were going to come into this world, I cannot determine how they will live while they walk on this world.  But, what I can do is surrender them in prayer to Him…

For them…

For Madison

For Kenton

For Johnson

And, as I wrote over a year ago, for your child.

If your child has ever crossed paths with mine, and I am aware of them, they are on my “list” of children from whom I pray.  That list is growing….I had to get a new book.

I used to pray for them by name, but am having to blanket them in prayer to get them all covered…

And, I ask that you do the same for mine.

Prayer is a parent’s greatest gift to give their children and to their children’s friends.  Prayer and the knowledge of the person to Whom we pray.

I believe this….there is no greater thing we can be doing….

Than to

PRAY.

Join me.

Blessings,

Lesa