Y’all, if you still haven’t ordered The Circle Maker, do it ASAP. I am so thankful for how God used this book as a tool to refresh me in my walk & encourage me in my prayer life.
It also spurred me to order Praying Circles Around Your Children.
I absolutely LOVED this except from the book:
“You’ll never be a perfect parent, but you can be a praying parent.” Truth bomb.
I truly believe it is my obligation/responsibility as a parent to cover my children in prayer (just as it is for wives to pray for your husbands). But more than anything, I consider it a PRIVELEGE!!! How cool that we get to go to the Lord and intervene on behalf of our families- our future or current spouse and children- to lift them up to God?!? Man, that is powerful.
Jonathan and I have been praying for Baby Jase since lonnnng before be was born, and we pray for our future children as well. Being totally honest, I find it more natural to pray for our babies than anything else and find myself doing it all the time. I have to work to be more intentional in other areas of my prayer life, but this is one area that is second nature.
I found something on Pinterest a long time ago about praying for your children, and I loved that it had Scripture attached to each prayer. I underlined or highlighted the Scripture in my Bible & I copied the list (I wanted it in my handwriting) and put it on our frig so it’s a constant reminder for me. I pray for more than just this list, and definitely more in depth in each area, but I like having some specific daily targets to pray over Jase and appreciate that they are directly out of God’s Word.
I know it is equally as important to pray WITH your children and in front of them. We make it a point to pray with Jase several times during the day. When he first wakes up, before all of our meals, and before bed are the go-to times, but I try to pray out loud when I am praying throughout the day. I always pray out loud in the car, for example. And I try to say praises out loud too. I am working on being more mindful of always having praise on my lips and thanking God for the “small things” so I can have a more grateful spirit. More recently, I have been asking for forgiveness out loud too. I want my kids to see that I’m real and I I mess up (I don’t think I’ll be able to hide that- ha!), but God is merciful when we ask for forgiveness and repent. Man, I’m having to do this WAY MORE than I’d care to admit.
It is truly my heart’s desire to be a prayer warrior, and I want my husband, children, grandchildren, family, and friends to know they can count on me to lift them in prayer. I want to pray constantly throughout my day. The Circle Maker has inspired me and taught me how to do that & I feel I have grown tremendously in a short time in this area. When someone asks me to pray for them, I will pray for that person out loud with Jase (if it is appropriate to do so) so he can begin learning the power of prayer.
I know God honors bold prayers, and one prayer can change EVERYTHING. I have recently been praying specifically for mentorship for both Jonathan and myself because we know we have a LOT to learn! And we want to learn from those who already walk in wisdom & are raising godly children.
We are blessed in the fact that our church is filled with some awesome men and women of the Lord who are great examples to us- especially regarding parenting. I have learned so much from so many of the couples already & I will soak up ALLLLL the wisdom, advice, knowledge, and experience they want to pass along. I am a “learner”-- especially when it comes to the topics I’m passionate about. (I know that is not grammatically correct, but I prefer to write like I speak.) Parenting is definitely one of them, and we’re obviously very new. We have a LOT to learn & will still make LOTS of mistakes, of course. (I think that’s why I am so set on being a prayerful parent. I don’t want to let my hot mess self get in the way of raising children who LOVE and FEAR the Lord.)
There is one family who especially sticks out to me as the type of family I want to have. They have seven INCREDIBLE children. I could go on for days with stories about them. I respect their family tremendously and value ANYTHING this couple has to say about child rearing. And when I think of the Proverbs 31 woman, this mother is who pops in my head. They are both so humble and so full of wisdom. (Just shows how much growing and maturing I still need to do. If I had raised seven children like theirs, I would be offering to do parenting seminars for the whole world! They 100% give God ALL of the credit He deserves and constantly point everything back to Him. Sheesh, I have such a long way to go…)
They recently had a “family night” where they shared some insight with anyone who wanted to attend. I was excited about it for months, and of course Satan tried to keep us from making it back to church early so we could participate- but we MADE it. (No way I was missing it!) It wasn’t nearly long enough and left me so hungry for more. They said that they were blessed to have lots of great mentors along the way (even through authors of books they’ve read), which was confirmation in my heart for us to have mentors.
I wanted to share these two resources they gave to us because I know our world needs more godly parents who desire to train up godly children.
The first list is book recommendations. They reminded us, of course, that the Word of God is the ULTIMATE place to seek wisdom in parenting. The father reminded us that we may not agree with the doctrine or beliefs of all of these authors exactly, which is why we take the wisdom from them that works for us. Pray and seek the Lord to determine what is best for your family, as every parent, family, and child is unique. I ordered as many off the list that fit into our entertainment budget for this month (amazing how much more money we have to spend on books now that we cut out tv) and will order more next month. I seriously have so many books on my “to-read” list right now, I have enough material to make it through the rest of 2014.
They also gave us this list of specific ways to pray over your children and grandchildren someone had given them early on.
Look familiar? Ha! SAME list I found on Pinterest a while back. They handed Jonathan this when we first walked in, and he tapped me to show me, in awe that it was exactly what I have posted on our frig! Ha! I guess he thought I came up with that list on my own? Nope, definitely can’t take the credit.
One of other book I have that I wanted to recommend is:
Quick, easy read with lots of practical principles.
Anyone else have advice in regards to praying for, with, or in front of your children, or GREAT reads??
4 comments:
Thanks for this post, love the books and will have to read them soon!
I recently did a study with this book in our Small Group. Great book!!
I loved the Circle Maker. I'm the worst at only reading half a book. That one, I gobbled up. I read it all the way through, highlighted it and gave it to a friend. I've bought it for other friends. The other night a friend and I went and circled one of his dreams in prayer. It was such a cool experience. I've always been a prayer minded person, but I can't say enough good things about how that book encouraged and re-kindled my prayer life!
I recently started following your blog and I'm due with our first blessing from God by the end of this month. My husband and I are so excited to meet the little girl God has chosen for us. I just bought the Circle Maker and Praying Circles Around Your Children. I finished the latter in two days. What an awesome book!!! I can't wait to see how God will work in her life and the person she will grow to be. Thank you for the recommendations and your blog!! I love reading how God works in the lives of others and answers their prayers!! It's always encouraging! God Bless!
Post a Comment