Prayer Is a Powerful Tool in Parenting

As a child my experience of prayer was to pray the rosary.  My grandmother will pray the rosary at our bedside, every night.  I got very sleepy during the rosary.  For many years I thought it was the most boring thing. 

I was mostly raised by my maternal grandmother, as a child.  My parents seperated when I was only four years old.  My Mother became a single parent, and provider for two daughters and her mother.  Mother worked all day, and my sister and I were taken care by our loving grandmother. 

We lived in the Mexican border city of Juarez.  My grandmother will take us to many churches and will pray in front of big statues of Jesus and Mary.  She will light a candle, and just mumble things that I could not understand.

When we came to live here to California, our aunt Mary introduced us to a different form of prayer.  Aunt Mary is not Catholic.  She attends an Evangelical Church.  I remember been told the day we first visited her church.  We do not make the sign of the cross here, and there is not statues of Jesus and Mary here. 

We will enter the church, and walk straight to the front, kneel in front of the altar and give thanks to God for bringing us to church that day.  I noticed everyone will close their eyes, lift up their hand and just talk to God.  Some ladies will cry, and speak in a language that I did not understand.

I later was taught that this was the Holy Spirit's language.   We learn a lot at the Evangelical church.  We learn to read our Bible, learned to recite the books by memory.  We also learned songs.   We learned that Jesus loves us, and desires to have a personal relationship with each one of us.  

You know, I am thankful for those years.  They are my foundation in the faith I know practice.  Without that foundations my building would had collapsed years ago.

Now that I am a parent.  I want my children to know that Jesus loves them.  That Jesus is their friend and that they can pray to him and ask for things.  And that God will answer their prayers, if they are for their good.

But even with what I knew about prayer, I found it hard at times to sit down and pray.  I needed a guide.  How should I pray for my children, how should I show them to pray.

I can remember how long ago, but its been more than 3 or 4 years, I was listening to the Christian radio station and they will mention  Focus in the Family.  I searched for more information online and browsed through their website.  They were recommending a book called, Professionalizing Motherhood, author is Jill Savage.

I bought the book and read it.  There is a section on how prayer is an indispensable tool.  Jill shared her own struggle in learning how to pray.  She mentioned a ministry she was introduced to  called, Moms In Touch International (MITI).  This ministry's goal is to have a group of moms covering in prayer each school in their cities.  The groups meet for an hour and pray.

Jill was interested, but did not know how she could pray for an entire hour.  A local contact person from MITI, spoke with her and told her, to gather a few moms and that she will come by and teach them how to pray.

Jill also quotes a section in Stormie Omartian's book, The Power of a Praying Parent, of how our prayers make a big difference in our life and our child's life.

When the MITI contact person came to Jill's first meeting with other moms, she explained to them how they should pray. 

There is different steps in prayer: praise, confession, thanksgiving, and intercession. Later Jill made her own acronym to remember how to pray.  ACTS

A- Adoration, praise or worship to our God.  Singing songs, reading the Psalms.

C- Confession, asking God for forgiveness of our sins.
1 John 1:9, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness."

T- Thankgiving, giving thanks to God for the blessings in our life, our husband, our children.
1 Thessalonians 5:18, "Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

S- Supplication, asking for our needs
Philippians 4:6, "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thankgiving, present your request to God."

Jill also mentions how this resembles the "Lord's Prayer"

I see this same process, while I read the Liturgy of the Hours. 

I strongly believe that prayer makes a huge difference in a person's life. 

One example is my own mother.  A Catholic, who was never thought how to speak to God in her own words.  She did not even know how to pray the rosary.  She was to busy to even take time for that.  But now that she is a grandmother, and all her children are grown up, now she is equipped and knows how to pray for her children and grandchildren.

When I read about Stormie Omartian books, I immediately went to buy the books.  And it was such a joy for me to find her books in Spanish.  I took them to my mother, and she read them too.  Now she recommends the books to all her friends. She even gives them away as gifts.  She knows that prayer is powerful.  She knows the difference prayer has been in our family.  But the most important part is, that she has a personal relationship with our God.  She has known God in a different way.   He is not just someone up in heaven, ready to answer our prayers.  He is one amazing Father, a Friend, a Counselor, a Provider,  and our Healer.

I always keep this scripture in my mind. Luke 18:27, "What is impossible with men is possible with God."

To finish off, I will like to share a story that I heard this morning on the radio.  A man who will tend a church's garden, one day was watering the lawn.  Some teenagers came by took the hose away, beat him and stole his wallet.  This man never told anyone or pressed charges.  He only prayed for those young man.  Years later, one of this young men aproached the old man.  He was frightened, but the young man, told him not to be afraid.  He handed him his wallet back, with everything that was in it, including the exact amount of money.  Thanked him for never pressing charges against him, and left.   When the old man passed away, his job at the church was vacant.  The young man, now married, took over the job.  Later, he told the Pastor that he will no longer be able to care for the garden.  That his wife was pregnant and he needed to find another job.  The Pastor understood, and ask him how will he name his child.  The young man replied, the same name as the old man who used to take care of this garden. 

I could not remember the name used in the story.  What I will never forget is, that this young man was grateful to the older man so much, that he was going to name his own child in his memory.

Prayer Does Make a Difference!

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