Not Alone: Trusting God to Help You Raise Godly Kids in a Spiritually Mismatched Home (18 page)

Triumphant Kids

Praying for Our Kids: Their Friends,
Their Safety and Their Future

Lynn

Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

ROMANS 12:21

It started with a pound of hamburger.

Yep, I discovered a door of trust and a bridge to relationships, as well as a ton of laughter, opened up in our home when I was in the kitchen with a pound of ground beef. In the very early years of parenting both my son and my daughter, I committed to making my home a place where my children’s friends were always welcome. As my kids grew, and even now as my daughter is a senior in high school, kids unexpectedly show up at our house to hang out.

As the noise enters the house, I ask, “How was your day?” followed by, “Are you hungry?” The answer to the first question often varies, but the answer to the second is always a loud and exuberant yes!

Thus the hamburger, and 20 minutes later, we have tacos for everyone. I’ve become known in teen circles around my town as Mexican-Food Mama. The teens chide me as they walk in, asking, “Hey, are we having tacos?” knowing full well what the answer will be. I smile at their kidding around and thank our Lord that I am accepted into their highly stressful and culturally challenging world. I am a voice in their lives. And it all started with a taco. Who knew?

The Home with the Open Door

What I’ve slowly realized is that, almost by accident, I’ve created a soft place to land for my children and their friends. Over the years, while kids munched on tacos and tortilla chips, I lingered with them in the kitchen, participating in something rare and special. I became part of their world, learning about their friendships and their families. I joined in laughter as they relived some crazy antic that took place in the drama class, and I empathized with them as they conveyed their complaints about their school projects, their challenging teachers and their troubles at home. My daughter and her best friend included me as they talked about their fears and concerns for students who were choosing the troubled path of drugs, and they shared their concern and pain with me about a friend of theirs who had decided to have sex with her boyfriend.

Over time and with intention, I’ve built relationships with these kids. I’ve welcomed them to step through our open door, and I have loved each one of them. My token offering of a taco turned out to be a rich investment in a number of young people. I’ve developed relationships through love and acceptance by purposely leaving judgments about these kids’ clothes, music choices, sexual identities, hairstyles, etc., at the front door. I’m a safe adult in a world in which many kids don’t know what it feels like.

I knew my son’s friends, and now I know my daughter’s teenaged friends, by name. I know their stories, struggles, hopes and dreams. Because I’ve chosen to be the keeper of the open door, I’ve been offered an unlikely friendship. I’m often invited by my daughter’s friends to attend plays with the crowd, to see a movie or to do something else. There are times when I’m the only adult included in these young people’s adventures, which sometimes feels weird. But this blonde, five-foot-four, older mom joins the throng of kids and participates in their culture.

Being the parent with the open door actually reduces my mom-stress. I know where my child is, and I know whom she is with. The open door also allows me something far more important: it lets me know what to pray for my daughter and her friends as they try to navigate the difficulties of adolescence.

I think it goes without saying that friendships bear significant influence on our children’s choices, on how they process life and on how they react to the world around them. As a praying mom, I’m compelled to bring these teens before God in prayer, and more importantly, I bring my son and daughter before God with requests, concerns and hopes. I want God’s wisdom, power and love to influence and impact my children and their friends. So I pray words from a mother’s heart.

Having been a mom now for more than 30 years, I’m convinced that a mother’s prayer is one of the most powerful on earth. Read this passage from James with me: “The prayer of a righteous man [woman] is powerful and effective” (5:16). My friends, this passage is amplified when a mom whispers words filled with passion, seeking God’s protection, intervention and wisdom for her children.

A Prayer Warrior, Not a Worrier

There is a battle for our children. The battle is real but often so subtle that it’s difficult to recognize. However, we as believers know the God of the universe. We live in relationship with Him and walk in God-sized confidence, and the Lord expects us to intercede for our children. He waits to answer our earnest pleadings powerfully and effectively. How do I know this? I’ve experienced God’s faithful answers to my simple yet heartfelt prayers for my kids over and again.

Let me share a recent instance.

Several months ago my daughter came home from school absolutely distraught, tears flowing and almost inconsolable. A certain teenage boy at school had decided to make my daughter the target of his verbal barbs. From my daughter’s perspective this boy’s sole purpose in life was to make her miserable. His caustic words hit their mark, challenging her confidence, bruising her self-worth. If I could have X-rayed my daughter’s heart at that time, I would have discovered that it was torn and bleeding.

This went on for days, then weeks and for several months. Well, I’ll tell you what—when our child endures something such as bullying, the mama bear in us moms rises up and roars with ferocity. My friends, the circumstances were such for us that a direct confrontation with this kid was not possible. But that mattered little to me, because I’m friends with a great big God. I began to pray.

I will share with you that I prayed with passion and emotion, and I prayed for weeks. It was laborious praying, filled with a relentless conviction to surround my daughter with God’s power and to change her circumstances. I prayed every morning for her as I stood on the driveway in front of our home, watching her drive toward school. I’m quite certain the neighbors must have been perplexed as they watched me speak aloud toward the car, my hand raised as the vehicle proceeded up the street.

I prayed something like this:

Lord, my holy God
,

This very moment I’m asking for Your presence to surround Caitie. Lord, go with her into the halls of her high school. Father, in the name of Jesus I take authority from the enemy who is speaking lies into my daughter’s heart and mind. I renounce any lies that my daughter believes, such as she is insignificant. I bind the enemy who has told her that she is ugly, stupid or a fool. O Holy Spirit, rush with this car and remove thoughts of insecurity or fear from my daughter. Lord, I bind this boy at her school who, out of his own fear and insecurity, pours words of harm into my daughter. Lord, I surround him, and through Your power I pray that he is unable to speak any evil into my daughter or to other students about my daughter. Move in his life to reveal to him Your love for him this day.

Powerful Lord, my Father, Abba, now I hold up my daughter, Caitie, and in place of the lies, I ask You to affirm her. Place Your truth in her. Let others, including this boy, only say things about her and to her that are truthful and uplifting. When this young man hears her name, change his thoughts toward her to be good and not evil. When her name is spoken, prompt him to affirm her and to build up her character. Lord, speak through her friends to break the lies and to pour Your truth into my girl. Father, speak gently into my girl, and remind her that she is beautiful. She is a daughter of the King. She is confident in her identity. She is a believer in truth and justice. Affirm her worth, and let her see herself as You view her.

Affirm, protect, love on her with passion, and reveal Yourself to her daily. I pray this in the name of Jesus and by His authority and power. Amen.

I continued to pray similarly in my quiet time with God later in the morning. I prayed for my daughter in this manner throughout each day for weeks. It was arduous praying, and at times I felt worn out, but my passion for change, through the hand of the Lord, fueled my words and commitment.

Recently, late in the evening my daughter returned from a restaurant where she had met several of her friends for dinner. She walked into my room where I was reading. “Mom,” she said, “you are not going to believe what happened tonight.”

I looked up from my book, “What?”

She mentioned the names of the young people who had been at dinner. I winced when she mentioned the last name—that of her nemesis. She then said, “Mom, when it was time to leave the restaurant, this kid said to the group, ‘I want Caitie to drive me home.’ I reluctantly agreed, because there wasn’t really another alternative. We got into the car, and I was ready to do battle with this kid because I thought he was going to start right in with his trash talk. I tensed up, gripping the steering wheel, and pulled out of the parking lot.

“Mom, he looked at me and then he proceeded to apologize for treating me so badly and for being mean. Then he said he wanted to be friends. Can you believe it?”

I looked at my child. A smile filled my face, and I said, “Oh, honey, I’m so glad.” I followed right up with, “I have to tell you that I’m not surprised, because I’ve been praying for this very thing.”

Relief and hope displayed across my daughter’s face. It felt as though the battle was finally over. She smiled at me with peace in her eyes, leaned over, kissed my forehead, turned and left the room.

All was right with the world.

My heart filled, and tears sprang to my eyes. I began praying, “Oh, Abba Daddy, thank You for Your kind favor. Thank You for Your fathomless love and for Your care for my child.” I prayed for days after that, giving praise and thanks that the God of the universe loves me and my daughter.

Of course, not all our prayers are answered in dramatic fashion or even in the manner we are seeking, but it is our calling as mothers to pray, because if we are not praying for our kids by name, then who is? It is our high privilege to pray for our children and to bring their lives before God, fully trusting the Lord that He has every minute of every day of our kids’ lives in the palm of His hand.

My fellow mom, let’s choose this day to pray as warriors and to leave our worry behind us. Let’s choose to love our children’s friends and to pray for their relationships. Let’s pray with passion and power and then watch all that God will do, just because we asked. We might be the humble mothers who change the destiny of a nation through praying for the young lives that God has brought into our sphere of influence.

Setting the Stage

I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God
has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

PHILIPPIANS 3:14

When my son, Brad, was young, he loved Hot Wheels toy cars. We must have owned a bazillion of these tiny four-wheeled critters. These miniature vehicles would randomly appear in cupboards, be stuffed into pants pockets, be buried in the garden, sink down into the bathwater at bath time, and show up in the washing machine after they came out of said pants’ pockets. I’ve stepped on, sat on and kicked at least a thousand of these potentially dangerous little beasts as they were strewn across the house. Stepping on one at a brisk pace is a potential invitation to a chiropractic appointment. I know that I grumbled a few words under my breath as I flung a few of the tiny four-wheeled trinkets back into the toy box. But as I remember these cars today, I smile. I think of the little motor sounds my son made as he drove them across the kitchen floor. And as I reminisce back to that time, I see in my mind’s eye my boy’s tiny back hunched over a car that he was pushing with his chubby hand toward some impending crash. It’s this memory of my little guy playing cars that reminds me just how young he was when I began to pray something very specific for him and to pray for someone I would not meet for years—his wife.

It may seem strange that I was praying for my then-seven-year-old’s wife, but think with me for a moment. Our children’s spouses, their marriage and in-laws will form the most significant relationships, next to the one they have with Jesus, that our kids will navigate throughout their lives. As a young mom, I wasn’t leaving people this important to chance. I began to pray for my son’s wife in detail, asking the Lord to bring him the woman of his dreams and praying that this woman would be a believer. I asked God to reveal her to him and to cover their relationship with His favor. I prayed regularly for this particular woman whom I would not meet for years.

Right behind my prayers for this unknown girl, I prayed for her family. In-laws can make or break a couple. And in a selfish way, I wanted to really like my son’s in-laws. I prayed that they would be great people to hang around with, that our families would blend and that we would enjoy one another. I prayed that they would edify my son and my daughter-in-law’s marriage. Over the years I prayed about a great number of details regarding my son’s future. And I’ve been praying in the same way for my daughter since she was a baby.

When you speak to God about people like your in-laws for a long time, it’s really a neat moment when you finally meet them. For me that was last year when my son married. Brad’s new wife is delightful. She makes my son a better man, and I love her deeply. I also love her family, and I especially love that they are really fun.

I will always pray for my son and his new wife as they walk through this newly begun marriage journey. They have a young faith in God that will require maturing, as well as all the typical adjustments of the newly married, and more recently a little one is now on the way. But I have watched God’s faithfulness, and I know that He is walking with them, because I asked Him to.

Mom, perhaps right now you are walking the early and middle years of child rearing, when parenting is lonely. You are physically and emotionally exhausted, and you feel as though everything you are trying to do in your child is not working. Take heart, and remember the faithfulness of our God toward our children.