This post is close to my heart.
My mother, Patti, is a woman of audacious faith. She has
been praying for me and my three siblings since before we were even born. Every
morning, even this morning, you can find my Mom sitting on the couch in her living room, talking to God like an old friend. As I have become a mother, and
as I wade into the mystery of prayer myself, I've seen my Mom's morning prayer
time with new eyes.
I wrote this first as a letter to her, but as I wrote it, I
thought of myself and all the moms who are praying for their children. Whether
in quiet hours before they wake, or in the car during your commute home from
work, or in journals or on iPads, if you've been praying for your sons and
daughters, this one is for you.
Being a mama is hard work, isn’t it?
Maybe you've been at this gig for just a few months. Maybe
you've been at it so long that your babies have babies. No matter how long
you've been mothering, you've done some hard work. Your heart has swelled and broken and been
kicked and then dusted off and loved deeply as only a child can do.
You are doing the hard work today.
You've nurtured your kids moment by moment, day by day, from
the moment you knew their little hearts were beating, nestled deep down inside
you, to this very day. You've nursed and diapered, cleaned up messes and washed
bodies; you've fed meals and listened to stories, swept the floors and washed
the sheets, creating homes and safe places for your kids to grow. The unseen work
of mothering, day in and day out, week after week, month after month, year after
year until suddenly there are decades behind you.
But you have done more than this, if it's possible.
You've been praying.
You've whispered their names in the hours before dawn to a
listening God. You've sat on your couch, your scribbled-in Bible on your lap,
and spoken ancient Scriptures over them, with hope in your heart and faith on
your lips. You have offered each of them up in earnest prayers of protection
and safety and blessing. You have surrendered in faith these people who you
love more than you love yourself to the Father.
And it is making all the difference.
Mama, listen closely to what I know is true- these children
we pray for? They are the arrows in the hand of the warrior that the
Psalmistis writing about. You aren't just speaking to the ceiling in those hours before the house is
awake.
You are sharpening arrows.
Prayer by prayer, year by year, you are filing, grinding,
sharpening. Affixing them to the arrow with prayers still.
Arrows to be thrown out in to the world to pierce the
darkness, to lay bare the liar. Your prayers, thought in silence, written in
journals, whispered like a song to
El Roi, the God Who Sees,
have been heard and they are being answered.
And don't believe for a second the liar who tells you that these
prayers are useless. Don't fool yourself by thinking you could be doing more,
should be doing more. What a
gift you are
giving them!
What a love you are showing them. To pray for your children, ask
for the most intimate of requests, spoken in such humility at the foot of the
throne of the God of the Stars and Sun and Moon. "Who am I to ask you of
these things?" We often think when we pray. "Who am I that you would
hear me and listen?" But we are Mothers, wearing the crown and the robe
that we received as royal daughters of God, can walk boldly to him to ask that
he usher in heaven on earth by way of our children.
And make no mistake, he will.
Oh Mama, how pleased God must be with you. How he must delight
when he hears your footsteps approaching. "Do you see her? This is a
daughter after my own heart! Look how she takes after me in her love for her
children! See how she understands me when she lays down her life for them! Oh,
how she makes me proud when she sees them as I see them. Look at my daughter,
mothering hard. Who is like her in all the earth?"
So go on, Mama. Keep praying.
You are doing the hard work, the kingdom work, the eternal
work. I know it is breaking your heart wide open. But please, keep sharpening
those arrows. And in it, in the quiet sacrifice of prayer and in the hard work
of mothering, I hope you are filled up and fed well by the knowledge that it
matters.
The hard work isn't over yet, but it's making all the
difference.