The sidewalk in front of me proclaims in boldly chalked letters:
DON’T
STOP
PRAYING
And right after that:
GOD
HEARS
US
With my dog, I have walked past that message at least six or seven times since school began. I think it is finally sinking in. Somehow, every single year when my kids go back to school, I find myself temporarily at a loss for how to handle it. Eventually I realize that prayer is how I’ll manage.
In this vein, I’m sharing a prayer today. Most specifically, it is a prayer for my kids as they start another school year, but it can easily be prayed over any and all returning students that you know. I also think it would make sense to pray this prayer over and through any other new beginnings you may be experiencing in life these days.
Whatever your do, remember the chalked instructions. DON’T STOP PRAYING. GOD HEARS US.
Let us pray.
Dear Jesus,
Thank you for another sweet summer – now nearly over – fully crammed with the goodness of rest and travel and a little extra ice cream. As always, summer has feel like abundance, and even so, like it is not enough. We love the summertime so much. We always want more. Teach our hearts to yearn for other times and seasons just as keenly.
Now a new school year has dawned, and already the days have grown chillier, and the nights arrive a bit earlier. Thank you for helping these rhythms of change to come so naturally.
Because I can’t go too, Lord, I thank you for going ahead of my children into the new school year, into new school buildings, to meet new teachers, and new friends, to encounter new joys, and certainly, attend to new challenges. Prepare the way for them, and may it be a smooth path, an adventurous path, and one that is just arduous enough to make it an excellent and rewarding journey.
I thank you, God, that you not only go ahead of my children, but that you go with them. You never leave them lonely. Bless them with your steadfast presence. And also, give them excellent companions on the journey, friends with whom they are safe and loved, and who they can laugh with like only young people laugh. Surround them with teachers who love their vocation and offer premium instruction. Sustain their passion for teaching the whole year through, I pray, and help them to manage their classrooms well. Let them daily inspire their students, and make them bold to offer words of encouragement to the young learners in their care.
I pray that each day my kids would wake up ready to learn. Make them alert and attentive. Help them be interested in their education. May they be accomplished students, diligent in their daily efforts.
I also pray for my kids on the hard days that inevitably arrive – days when they wake up with a head cold, or a stiff neck, a sore throat, a heartache, and more. May your spirit rest gently with them on these days. Offer them comfort and healing enough to manage each day as it comes.
I do pray also for the stamina and perseverance to get through this whole big year of study.
As much as my children’s bodies will grow throughout the year, please also grow their minds. May their intellect expand, and won’t you allow them to increase in wisdom as well? Even more so, may their knowledge of, and love for you, grow biggest of all.
During this school year, please let my my kids be kind, and generous, and faithful, and good. Help them to be leaders and bright lights in the parts of school that need it most. Make them a blessing, and may they be blessed in return.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
These sorts of prayers I have prayed through all my children’s school years, and I will keep praying this year. Always something similar, with room for something new.
DON’T
STOP
PRAYING
GOD
HEARS
US
Chalk Rainbow photo by Alex Jackman on Unsplash
Chalk people photo by Tina Hartung on Unsplash
4 Responses
Wonderful prayer. It’s my prayer too, for my school-aged grandchildren. Thank you.
This is indeed a wonderful prayer. But for some of us it has not been a summer of abundance. In the Twin Cities of Minnesota we started the summer with a political assassination and ended it with a school shooting. It’s been a summer of gun violence, staying indoors due to air quality alerts, watching ICE raids on the news, stress over lost jobs…
My prayers are mostly of lament. I’m struggling to be hopeful.
Lord, have mercy.
Thank you for this comment, Susan. I thought about not writing a prayer, and only writing about prayer, for this kind of reason. Because one prayer never covers it all. This one prayer also does not cover everything that I think or feel about my summer, or about going back to school, but I take heart knowing that my prayers join the many. After posting, I was actually thinking a lot about safety – and lack thereof – in the world, and in schools today, and I felt like it was a big miss. Then I thought, “Katy, don’t stop praying,” and realized that indeed, my praying is not over with just this one. Trust that even now I am joining my heart and my prayers with you, and many, in lamenting much that is not right in the world.
Indeed, Lord have Mercy. Christ have mercy.
As an educator and parent of a university student, I prayed this prayer today too. The phrase about being “bright lights in the parts of school that need it most” gave me pause. I will think about that some more.