Prayer, Children, and the Internet

Evelyn Christianson (http://evelynchristensonministries.org/) tricked me in to praying out loud.  I had never prayed aloud even though I had been a Christian for years.  Maybe one reason this was true was that I couldn’t put my heart felt trust in God in to words.  I’ve never been a writer or a speaker.  But when I attended a Sunday school workshop, led by Evelyn Christianson, she had us form small groups of three or four.  I thought we were going to discuss a subject she would give us.  Instead she asked each member in the group to pray a one-sentence prayer.  Wow!  I was able to do that!  Who knew?  God knew.  So when I came down with fibromyalgia twelve years later, and I couldn’t work, I asked God what I could do?  He put on my heart that I could pray.

By that time Fern Nichols, (http://www.momsinprayer.org/about-us/fern-nichols), had founded Moms in Prayer, a group to pray for our children, teachers, and schools.    I have been involved in groups since my son was in 6^th grade and my daughter was in college.  It has been a tremendous blessing to our family to have the prayer support of many wonderful moms.  God has answered our prayers again and again.

Well, coming up on September 15, 2013, is Bless our schools Sunday.  (http://www.momsinprayer.org/events/bless-our-schools) And our kids, teachers, and schools need a lot of prayer.  A prayer request from one teacher is, “PLEASE PRAY FOR THE STUDENT’S LIVES AND CHALLENGES, AND THAT THEY ARE ABLE TO FOCUS AND ACCOMPOLISH ALL THE YEAR HOLDS FOR THEM.  I WOULD ALSO ASK FOR YOUR PRAYERS THAT I CAN HAVE THE ENERGY, PATIENCE AND LOVE TO HELP MY STUDENTS BE SUCCESSFUL, AND THAT THROUGH ME THEY WILL SEE GOD’S LOVE.”

I think our prayers for our kids are even more urgent than ever.  I listened to a Revive Our Hearts podcast with Josh McDowell, (http://www.josh.org/), and heard this alarming message: http://www.reviveourhearts.com/radio/revive-our-hearts/small-conversations-big-results/.  The Internet is a dangerous place for our kids but it has good stuff on it too.  So we need to have such a good relationship with our kids that they can tell us anything and we can have wisdom to steer them in the right direction.  (When our daughter was in college every two weeks she would call and say she was going to quit college.  She usually had a paper or a test coming up.  I would suggest that she wait two weeks, and then we would talk again.  In two weeks she had decided to stay.  She got a Bachelors degree and is now working on her Masters! Meanwhile, during that time, my moms prayer group would be praying like crazy!) 

So check out getting involved in prayer for our kids.  I’m now leading a career prayer group.  I still pray succinct prayers and I know that God is OK with that!