The Power of Prayer

Do you pray?

I pray daily, possibly hourly, and on a good day (okay, and bad days as well) it seems like every minute I’m in prayer. I try to be in constant communion with God through prayer. My goal is to be less distracted and more in tune with our creator. I believe strongly in the power and benefits of prayer. Clearly God is not a genie, granting wishes as I go about my day, but I do believe God wants us to have a relationship with Him through prayer. And I believe He wants to hear our praise, fears, struggles, requests and desires. As a mother, my children are such an enormous part of my life that they take up a good portion of my prayers. I’ve prayed for them since I knew I was pregnant with my first child. I’ve always felt comfortable brining my thoughts about my kiddos to the Lord. Yet, a couple of years ago I read a book that changed my parenting prayer life. Which is why I felt compelled to share about my experience reading the book The Power of a Praying Parent.

You may have heard of the “Power of Prayer” books by Stormie Omartian. I own The Power of a Praying Wife and while I have good intentions, I have yet to read it in it’s entirety. So, when my friend lent me The Power of a Praying Parent I was excited to read it, but felt a bit guilty, thinking it may be another book on my “I’ll get to this later, I promise!” stack. How completly wrong I was. I started reading it, knowing that I needed to get the book back to my friend and I quickly devoured it! I believe it was given to me at just the moment I needed it. Parenting is not easy at any stage but those tween years, and now teen years…. they have my head spinning and and I find myself having to check my own emotions as my teens run rampant as well. I’ve read how parents rate their quality of life as lower during the teen years and while my kiddos are a blessing and a half, I can see why these years are some of the hardest in a different way than those baby years were also the hardest. I have AMAZING kids and yet, it still isn’t easy. The sleepless baby days were no joke either. That was total survival mode for a while. There is just something emotionally exhausting about raising teens. And again, my daughter is a pretty amazing young lady (nope, I’m not biased at all). 😉

Anyways, all this to say, I read this book and and I prayed. I prayed and prayed each day for both of my kids. My 12 year old daughter and 10 year old son (at the time). I prayed very specific prayers over both of them. I didn’t change a thing in my parenting otherwise. And I saw miracles! I saw God do amazing things in their lives that had nothing to do with me… other than prayer of course. 😉 Now, like I said before, I don’t see God as a genie. I don’t think he was like “Oh, that’s what you want, okay!” But I do believe that He listened to the desires and concerns in my heart. Specific changes happened in my kids lives that I believe were a direct result of prayer.

Yes, I still go through valleys when it comes to parenting. My daugter is now 13 and a half… so you know… But I can tell you that each day that I turn to the Lord with my troubles and my worries, He hears me. And I honestly have no idea how I’d make it through this parenting thing without Him. This book made me realize that so often I try and try and push and push and attempt to make things happen through my own strength before even thinking of turning to the Lord first. I also have to remind myself that my kids are unique people made in the image of God. I didn’t create them. I can do the best I can as a parent, but ultimatly they are their own people with their own fun quirks, and their own minds. They have to make decisions for themselves, so praying is one of the best things I can do. I can lead by example, and guide my children, yet they ultimatly will be adutls one day and decide for themselves how they will live their lives. I can only give them love, support, guidance, and prayer. My prayer is that my kiddos will live amazing lives even with all my parenting mistakes because honestly, we are all just doing our best. I need Jesus when I’m doing well, and because of my imperfections.

All this to say, I can’t recommend this book enough.

And while I STILL haven’t finished Power of a Praying Wife, I do pray for my hubby daily too. 🙂

Have you seen miracles through prayer? Feel free to share in the comment section below.

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