Staying The Course For Parents

I had the chance a few weeks ago to join my daughter in tucking my grandsons into bed. After they said their prayers, they asked me to pray. [I KNOW!!!] So I prayed over them, and prayed a prayer that I’ve probably prayed more times than any other prayer for my own children.


“Lord Jesus, help them to love you with their whole heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to follow you faithfully, not turning to the right or the left . . . Amen.”


And immediately, six-year-old Bennett asks, “Gramma, what does that mean, to not turn to the right or left?”


OH, my heart, baby!


Using my hand-motions, I told him, “It means that you are following Jesus so closely that you don’t turn off the path to the right or the left.”


“Well, what if Jesus turns right?”


“Then you turn right WITH HIM, but you never turn right unless He goes first.”

If you cold have seen my granny heart singing! 


Raising children is not for sissises. Especially in our culture. It is rather shocking how things have changed since my baby graduated just six and a half years ago, particularly with access to smart phones and the internet. It feels like a situation for a “Red Alert!”

But, I’m also very confident that it is not an impossible job.


Because God.


With God’s enabling grace, attentive, prayerful parenting, and the help of family and friends, we can guide them safely to the heart of God.


I am so honored to be a granny, and thankful to have time to spend encouraging the mamas and being involved with the little ones.


I haven’t stopped praying that prayer for my own children as they raise theirs. Dear Lord, help them stay the course and endure to the end. Help ME to do so as well.


This journey with Jesus is a long road, we need endurance and fortitude for the long haul. And that comes readily from the favor of God through our loving attention to Him, the study of His word, and through our living our lives to honor Him.


Keeping Jesus as the hub from which all of our endeavors encircle. Colossians 3:23


4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. 5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. [Deuteronomy 6:4-9]

I cannot stress the impact of those few verses have had upon me and others for the training of our children. Have you landed there? And how do you impress the Word of God on your children?


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