A mother’s prayer

I’ve prayed for countless things over the years that have, literally, brought me to my knees. Some of those things seem silly now, but others are just as looming, just as urgent.

But the biggest of all of those have been my prayers for my kids.

Every parent knows this: you would move heaven and earth to put your child’s world to rights. You would do anything to line up all the ducks in a row, to put everything in its proper place. But so often— too often— it’s not within our grasp. The thing our child needs the most is just out of our reach, or so plainly beyond our power.

Sometimes we try to make it happen anyhow. And honestly, that’s one of the ugliest sides of parenting. Moms and Dads pushing and prodding and angling to bring about their will, or their child’s… it’s an unseemly thing, at best. We’ve all seen it. Heck, some of us will even admit to having been so desperate as to try it.

But if we finally reach the end of ourselves—or if God shows compassion and knocks us off our horse before we can make a total fool of ourselves— we relent and go back to the thing that should have been our go-to from the start.

We pray.

We pray the bad influence friend out of our kid’s life.
We pray for a spot on the baseball team.
We pray for the right school to say yes.
We pray for a doctor to make the right diagnosis.
We pray for safe travels.

We pray for all these things and more, every day, because we are parents and there is nothing more that we want in this world than to see our children happy, and safe, and walking with Jesus without stubbing their toes on even tiny hardships.

Of course, God can (and does) often overrule our petitions. Sometimes He lets those wayward friends stick around long enough for our kids to take a little heat and figure out for themselves the life-long truth that running with a bad crowd is not worth the so-called fun. Or maybe He lets our kid miss those “have to have it” opportunities by inches, teaching them to show grace in both defeat and victory. Maybe He leads them through a labyrinth of false starts or interrupted journeys or right smack into a situation that leaves us wringing our hands and asking why, showing them that He is sovereign, always. Or maybe He just lets us kids sit and be still for a while, waiting on Him, and honing some other skill that we might never see.

We know God is present even when He says no. But sometimes, it’s hard to see Him, and even harder to feel His arms wrap around us as we long to wrap our own arms around the child who is the object of our heart’s deepest cries. Sometimes it’s hard to sit by as He teaches our kids the lessons He needs them to learn, when we’d love to help them skip the test and move right on to receiving the reward.

For the past year and a half, I’ve prayed that Mary Hannah would find a midwife with whom to apprentice. I’ve prayed over specific opportunities, I’ve prayed generally, and I’ve even prayed in that almost-whiny, “Come on, God, what are you doing here? Can you cut this kid some slack?” tone that I’m sure doesn’t make Him any more likely to cave to my requests. (It doesn’t work with my kids, so why do I think it will work in the reverse?)

I’ve worried with my daughter, and I’ve grown anxious with her, and I’ve held her hand as we contemplated the reality that if she didn’t find someone soon, she was looking at taking a leave of absence from school so as not to outpace her clinical skills with her academic knowledge.

And all the while, I’ve prayed.

Finally, He has answered.

A mother's prayer

This morning, Mary Hannah will attend her first prenatals as an apprentice. She will finally start transferring her know-how from textbooks to real-life. God willing, she’ll be attending her first birth since January sometime later this month. She won’t need to take a break from classes, but will instead continue on with the same fervor and hard work she’s shown since she put her foot to this path.

I’m not sure, exactly, what the lesson she needed to learn here was. Patience? Trust? A willingness to let God be God? Whatever the case, she seems to have passed with the kind of grace I so rarely muster, yet so eagerly hope to cultivate. She has expressed her gratitude, given Him glory and praise, and moved forward without skipping a beat— exactly like someone who never doubted that the check was in the mail all along.

Me, I’m grateful as always for the kindness shown to my child. How is it that a blessing bestowed on your kids is somehow ten times sweeter than one that lands in your own lap? I don’t know. But I do know that the second the news came down, I began jotting down a whole new list of prayer points. Lord, keep her safe as she travels to births. Lord, give her wisdom as she serves these laboring mothers. Lord, make every baby healthy. Lord, make the worst never happen.

Mary Hannah will deliver babies, and me? I will deliver prayers, petitions, and thanksgivings endlessly on her behalf straight to the throne of God. Both are an immense burden, and both are an unspeakable privilege.

One thought on “A mother’s prayer

  1. Praise God!!! I’m so happy for her. I’ll be praying too!!

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