To Timothy, my dear son…I constantly remember you in my prayers, recalling your tears. I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy.  II Timothy 1:2, 3-4, NIV

     Susie Larson (“Your Powerful Prayers”) shares that one Mother’s Day at church she was filled with pain. While other families were worshipping together, her three sons lived in three different states. And though they all loved each other, two of them were sincerely struggling with their faith, and that made the distance seem about more than just miles. She said she didn’t yet have the holy confidence to fully entrust her sons to God. She didn’t know how to find joy in the meantime. Isn’t this true of so many of us? We love our kids and we love God, but it’s hard not to lose our peace and joy when it looks like our kids don’t love God.

     In the book “Producing the Promise,” Liberty Savard writes that we should care deeply about our children and how their lives are going, but if they are struggling in their walk with God, God is wanting to get their attention, and we should be glad. She says, “A parent’s prayer should be a prayer of faith that God cares more than the praying parent does. Parents need to realize that the concern they have over need in their child’s life is tiny compared with the multiplied-million-times-over love and concern that God has for the same child.” I love that, don’t you? I need to be reminded of that when I don’t see what I want to see. At that point, what I need to see is God.  So what do I do at that point? Here’s what she says:

     “I bind them to God’s will and purposes and loose the effects and influences from them of stronghold thinking and wrong agreements. I ask God to cover them with grace and mercy and teach them what He must. I then leave them in God’s hands and trust that He is able to bring them all the way in.”

*Do you believe that God loves your children? Are you able to leave them in God’s hands and rest?

Father God, I know that I will finally find rest when I really believe that I have done it all when I have spoken to You. I have left it with You and put it in Your loving hands. I know that each of us has to work out our faith journey and make it our own. You know my parent-heart for this child. Father them, O Lord, as only You can. In Your loving name I pray, Amen.

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