A Mother’s Prayer

Dear Lord, as I gaze upon the calm and peaceful countenance of my sleeping child, I am filled with a love so great, that I am certain my body can’t hold it. And then the love continues to grow, and I am amazed that You’ve given me a heart capable of holding something larger than the encapsulated sum of everything.

And as I consider this miracle of love, two words run through my mind: Thank You.

Thank You, Lord, for getting me to bed time. Thank You for guiding me to 8:00 PM without once smashing apart that ambulance toy with its incessantly blaring sirens, or casting R2D2 down into the depths of Hell with all the other demons. (You know what I’m talking about here, Lord.)

Thank You, too, for inventing wine, and for the UPS man who delivers it to my house by the case. I will now sit on my sofa and drink a glass bottle. (Sorry. Almost forgot who I was talking to.)

When my children wake up tomorrow, I know that You will help to guide us through another day. I have a few requests, if I may.

For my oldest daughter, 9-year-old E, please give her confidence. Please help her to know that she is capable of so much more than working hard and pleasing adults. She deserves good friends. She deserves to be recognized by other kids as the fun girl to hang out with, and a caring, loyal friend. Please give me the strength to raise her into confident young woman. When she expresses herself in her self-assured way, please give me the wisdom to recognize her abilities. And Lord, if she ever insists that she knows more than me, or tells me that I’m too old and out of touch to “get” her friends, please give me the strength to march her out of that party right in front of the boy she likes and make her wish she’d never tested me.

For my middle daughter, 8-year-old S, please help her to know how much I love her, and how important she is to our family. Help her feel less anger, less guilt, and less hurt. Give her more happiness, more love, more pride. Please let her remember these years as the time she learned to turn trials into character, and the expanse of her mother’s love. Help me know how to teach her that. And please, Lord, if she screams that she hates me and I’ve ruined her life, and my hair is too frizzy for her to listen to me anyway, please give me the strength to smack that shit down immediately.

For my son, 5-year-old R, please give him courage. Help him translate his dare-devil sense of adventure into true bravery. Help him recognize that he can survive in the world, even outside of my shadow. Please let him keep his sincere, wholehearted love for childhood and innocence for as long as possible. And when he inevitably grows up, as children tend to do, please give me the courage to let him. And especially if he gets married-to a woman who I’m sure is wonderful and charming-and decides that he will live with her, far away from me, please give me the grace not to interrupt their wedding dance by grabbing the mike from the DJ and announcing that I’ve found him a good job in town and bought them the house right next to mine, so there’s really no reason I shouldn’t have the first dance with the groom.

And finally, for the baby, 2-year-old G, please help him to grow up to be just like his father, whom G adores. Help him to be the same generous and devoted husband to a woman who will be just as lucky as I am some day. Help him to understand the value of hard work, and the simple, quiet virtue of making his family and his God the most important things in his life. And Lord, when I go to pick him up out of his crib, first thing in the morning, eyes bright and craving that first baby hug of the day, and little G looks up at me and shrieks, “NO! Want Daddy!” Please give me the strength to sigh and say, “Daddy’s not here, Bud,” and just get him up anyway, instead of leaving him there in his wet diaper while I go downstairs to the kitchen to cry and open a bottle of wine at 7:00 in the morning.

Amen.

What are your prayers for your children? (A little less self-centered than mine? LOL!) I love hearing from you!

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