I’d like to cover an aspect of parenting that has become increasingly near and dear to my heart as my own children gather in age and stature. Each passing day they are ever closer to that leap from the nest (yet never from my heart). Let’s talk about prayer.
I know that seems like kind of an obvious answer… I teach Sunday School and my students always tell me that the right answers to my discussion points are usually Jesus, the Bible, or prayer.
I can’t imagine for a moment being a mom without being a prayer warrior. I remember when we first found out about Eli, after over a year of trying conceive, waving the test in the air exultantly proclaiming “We’re pregnant!” to a very bewildered-looking Rob. My slow and steady husband took a moment to process and while he pondered, my next breath was “What did we do?!?”. Suddenly the depth and brevity of bringing a helpless life into the world crashed in and around my heart and I began to question every aspect of our preparedness for this incredible responsibility we had just flung ourselves into.
In that moment, positive pregnancy test in hand, the crushing anxiety of being a parent set in. And truly, though it ebbs and flows, anxiety has been a faithful companion from that day forth. I began to think about every possible scenario of what could go wrong during pregnancy and delivery in the next nine months.
The reality is that when the baby finally arrives, that’s where the real worrying begins. You take that precious bundle of joy from the sterile cocoon of hospital out in to the real world, the nurse proclaims you ‘parent’ and puts your child in your car waving you off as you head off into the harrowing journey that is parenthood. I’d like to say it gets easier as your child grows, but danger lurks at every corner in the form of germs and falls and weird new diseases. (I distinctly remember being worried about Avian Bird Flu) Then they start school and face the giants of bullies and demanding teachers and loss of naptimes, and my, the list goes on and on. They only continue to grow as this lost and dying world becomes a darker and more sadistic place. Someday soon, in jr. high and high school they’ll be offered all kinds of opportunities to do Lord only knows what with God only knows who!
It’s overwhelming. And of course, you can see how my over-active imagination had a run away with me even before Eli was kicking in my belly. It’s enough to make a parent want to throw in the towel before they even begin.
So how do we combat all this anxiety and complete inadequacy we have as parents?
I’ll tell you what Rob and I did in that moment that we discovered our bundle of joy was on its way. We prayed. We humbly bowed down before the Creator of heaven and earth and everything in between and we asked for help.
When Eli was an infant, he had his days and night’s confused. I wandered around in a sleep-deprived coma for the first six or eight months of his life. We were too broke for cable at the time, so I would sit with my beautiful, babbling, fully-awake baby in the wee hours, night after night, and pray over him. I prayed for his health, his safety, his friends, his career, his walk with God and his future wife. Four years later, when God blessed us with Sarah, my prayer life doubled.
I have never stopped praying for either of my babies. And as they grow and change and move more towards that dreaded leap from our nest, my prayers only get more fervent. I pray for specific character traits and habits and values. I pray against harm and sickness. I pray for relationships and opportunities. But most of all, I pray that they will always walk with Jesus, because I know He knows the way.
When you become a parent, it’s as if a piece of your heart has detached, grown legs and begun walking around and making decisions all for itself. You can still feel all the emotions of it being your heart, but you gradually lose the ability to help it make choices, or to influence the environment around it. The only way to combat the anxiety that comes from that lack of control is to take it to Jesus.
So how do you love your teenager? You pray. You ask the Creator for wisdom, guidance, protection, SANITY, whatever you need at that moment.
Praying for you, my friends–a
“pray without ceasing” 1 Thessalonians 5:17
