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Hello, friend. I am so glad to be back.
It has been a long time since I have written here or sat behind the microphone to record a podcast episode. Much longer than I ever intended. We have had several unexpected changes in our family and in our lives over the past several months, and honestly, I kept waiting to feel like I had finally landed on my feet. But I never really did. Eventually, I realized that maybe I was never going to feel completely ready, and if I kept waiting until I felt ready, I might never start again. So, ready or not, here I am.
I have missed podcasting and blogging. I really do love doing this, and I am thankful for those of you who reached out during my time away and asked how we were doing and whether I was coming back. Those messages meant more to me than you probably realize. When I started this podcast four or five years ago, I had one son in high school and two middle-school boys whom I was homeschooling. Today, I have two college students and one son still in high school. A lot has happened during those years, and I am so thankful for my boys and so proud of the young men they are becoming.
One of the things that encouraged me to come back is how many of you responded to the series I did earlier this year about praying for our children. I received so many emails, messages, comments, and questions from mothers who wanted to know more about praying for their children. That told me that this is a real need. We want to know how to pray for our children, especially as they grow older and begin making more and more of their own decisions. And as I have walked through some of those things in my own family, I have realized again that prayer is not simply something we do when we don’t know what else to do. Prayer is one of the most important things we can do for our children.
Wrestling in Prayer
The truth is, prayer does not come easily for me. Prayer is hard and holy work. When we come before the Lord in prayer, we can’t keep hidden the things we would rather not deal with in our own hearts. God has a wonderful way of putting His finger on things. We may come to Him because we are concerned about our children, only to find that He begins dealing with something in us.
Maybe it is fear. Maybe it is unforgiveness, regret, an old wound, or a sin that we have been trying not to think about. Whatever it is, God brings it into the light. And sometimes that can make prayer feel like wrestling—not because God is against us, but because He loves us too much to leave us bound by the things that are keeping us from the freedom He wants for us.
We often want to pretend those things aren’t there. We think, even unconsciously, This is going to be too painful. I don’t want to deal with that right now. But God is not in the business of pretending. He is in the business of bringing things into the light so that He can heal us. Sometimes the very things we don’t want to face are the things that are keeping us from moving forward in the fullness of what He wants to do in our lives.
And I have discovered that praying for our children often brings those things to the surface.
Your Past Does Not Disqualify Your Prayers
A while back, during the series I did about praying for our children, a parent contacted me about something I had said. I had made a comment along the lines of, “The past doesn’t matter when it comes to praying for your children,” or perhaps that nothing that has happened in the past can keep you from doing what God has called you to do today. I don’t remember my exact words, but I do remember the response.
This mother told me that she wished she could believe that, because she had made a lot of mistakes as a parent. She struggled to believe that those mistakes didn’t matter. Her words really stayed with me because I realized that I needed to explain what I meant more carefully.
Of course our past matters. The things we do and say matter. The way we treat our children matters. We all make mistakes as parents, and there are things we wish we could go back and change. There are words we wish we had never spoken and moments when we wish we had responded differently. We may look back and realize that we were impatient, distracted, neglectful, fearful, or simply didn’t know what we know now. We cannot pretend those things didn’t happen, and I am not suggesting that we should.
What I am saying is that the mistakes of your past do not have to keep you from praying for your children today. Your prayers are powerful.
Sometimes the enemy uses our past regret to keep us from doing what God is asking us to do right now. We look back at our failures and think, Who am I to pray for my child? Look at the kind of mother I’ve been. How can I possibly go before God and ask Him to work in my child’s life?
But that kind of thinking doesn’t lead us toward God. It leads us away from Him and robs our children of the prayers they need.
Think about what happened in the Garden of Eden when sin first entered the world. Adam and Eve sinned, and the first thing they did was hide. They realized they were naked, they were ashamed, and they hid themselves from God. Shame made them want to get away from the only One who could help them.
We do the same thing.
We can allow regret and shame over the past to make us hide from God instead of running to Him. But because of Jesus, we don’t have to live that way. Yes, we sin. Yes, we make mistakes. There are times when we need to repent and there are times when we need to apologize to our children and make things right. But after we have done what we can do, we don’t have to remain trapped in shame.
We can come to the Lord and say, “Lord, You know me. You know what I’ve done. You know where I have failed. You know the things I wish I could go back and change. But today, I want to pray for my children.”
And He will help us.
That is grace.
Your past does not cancel out your prayers today. Nothing you did yesterday has to keep you from going before God today unless you allow the shame and regret surrounding those things to keep you away from Him. The enemy would love for you to believe that your prayers don’t matter because of the life you have lived or the mistakes you have made. But if you believe that lie, you will begin hiding in the trees instead of coming into the presence of God.
Don’t do that.
Your children need your prayers.
Motherhood Changes, But Our Children Still Need Us
I have been thinking about this a lot because my own children don’t need me in the same ways they used to. When my boys were little, loving them meant feeding them, rocking them, changing diapers, making meals, teaching them, homeschooling them, answering their questions, and simply being available to.
I remember seasons when having ten minutes alone with a cup of coffee felt like a luxury. There were always little voices calling, “Mama, Mama.” At one point, I had two children in pull-ups and one in diapers, and I honestly felt like changing diapers was my entire life. It didn’t always feel like an expression of love at the time, but it was. I was caring for their needs, and that was one of the ways I loved them.
As they got older, my ways of loving them changed. I made meals. We sat around the table together. We talked. I drove them places. I taught them. I listened to them. There were so many practical things I could do to show them that I loved them.
But now I can make a meal and text everyone, “I have cooked supper. It is on the stove,” because everybody is somewhere else. One has soccer practice. One has a job. One has praise and worship practice. Getting everyone around the table at the same time feels impossible.
It is a wonderful thing to watch your children grow up, but there is also a strange transition that happens when they no longer need you in the ways they once did. You suddenly have time that you didn’t have before, and you have to figure out what to do with that time.
For a while, I filled that space with other things. I poured myself into church. I poured myself into the podcast. I opened a coffee shop for our church. There were still plenty of people and responsibilities that needed me, so I filled the space that motherhood was gradually leaving behind.
But in this season, many of those things have been stripped away, and I’ve found myself asking the Lord, What am I supposed to be doing now?
And I believe He has been saying Pray for your family.
They don’t need me to change their diapers anymore. They don’t need me to homeschool them or prepare every meal for them. They may not need me to solve every little problem that comes their way.
They need me to pray.
I am making that a non-negotiable in this season of my life. I want to carve out time specifically to pray for my husband, my children, my home, and my family. I want to be intentional about it because I believe prayer matters.
That is what I can do.
And I believe in this season, that is exactly what God is asking me to do.
Your Prayers Can Go Where You Cannot
One of the things I love about prayer is that it is not limited by time or location. Your child can be sitting right beside you, or your child can be on the other side of the world, and you can still bring that child before the throne of God.
This summer, one of my sons went to Germany, and I prayed for him every day. I couldn’t be there with him. I couldn’t see everything he was doing. I couldn’t protect him from every situation he might encounter.
But I could pray.
And now I find myself praying about things that haven’t even happened yet. I’m praying about the jobs God will open for my children. I’m praying about the plans He has for their lives. I’m praying about the people they will become and the choices they will make years from now.
Those prayers don’t have an expiration date.
At all times, in all seasons, they need your prayers. .
You Don’t Have to Know Exactly What to Say
Maybe you’re thinking, Audrey, I don’t know how to pray.
I encourage you to just start.
Get alone with Jesus and begin talking to Him.
The best teacher of prayer I have found isn’t a book or another person telling me how to pray. It is simply getting in there and praying. As you pray, things will come up. God will show you things in your own heart that need to be dealt with. You may discover that there are fears or regrets or hurts that have been keeping you from coming freely into His presence.
Deal with those things with Jesus.
Believe that He is for you. Believe that He wants you to come to Him. Believe that His grace is greater than your failures.
And then keep praying.
Pray, Mama. Pray.
A Prayer for Your Children
Father, in Jesus’ name, we come before You today and thank You for these precious children You have given us. Lord, You love them even more than we do, and we are so thankful that they are in Your hands.
Help us to pray for our children and to cover them in prayer. Teach us how to pray for those You have entrusted to our care. Give us the words when we don’t know what to say, and help us to believe in the power of prayer.
Lord, as we come before You, I pray that You would also do a work in our own hearts. Bring healing where there is hurt. Bring repentance where there is sin. Help us not to be held back by regret, shame, or fear. Don’t allow the lies of the enemy to convince us that we are disqualified from coming before You.
Remind us that we are Your daughters. We are imperfect, but we are covered by Your grace.
And Lord, we want to see Your kingdom come into the lives, hearts, and minds of our children. We want to see them walk in truth. We want them to know You, love You, and have a real relationship with You.
Do for them what You have done for us.
In Jesus’ name, amen.
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If you would like help finding the words to pray over your children, can I suggest the book of prayers I wrote for moms?
Covered In Prayer: 31 Prayers to Cover You and Your Children in God’s Grace. It’s for the mom who wants to bring her child to the feet of Jesus, but is painfully aware of her inability to do so without God’s help. I hope it will be a blessing to you and your family.
Your children need somebody knocking on heaven’s door for them. They need someone bringing them before the throne of God—not because you are a perfect mother, but because you are their mother, you love them, and God has entrusted them to you.
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