Regardless of how your family educates your girl, everyone gears up for a new school year.
This year, I’m taking cue from a friend who spends her last days of summer break penning specific ways she wants to pray for her kids during the upcoming school year.
Every summer while my friend’s children zip through sprinklers and cruise on bikes, my friend studies her kids. With each child’s specific needs in mind, my friend creates a list of prayers because even more important than the two boxes of Kleenex, three reams of copy paper, and a pack of black Sharpies is covering our girls in prayer.
Need ideas on how to pray for your girl’s upcoming school year? Here are a few my girl and I came up with.
- Courage to be herself. If ever there was ever a time when girls want to blend in, it’s during the tween and teen years. Courage is needed to stand tall, to trust your instincts, and to listen to God.
- God picked teachers. Last year, was the first time I prayed God would match my daughter with the exact person she needed to hold her accountable and motivate her to achieve. I can’t tell you what a difference it made.
- Solids. In our house, we call the friends who stand by you even when the rest of the world fades away “solids”. Every girl needs at least one solid (funny how this is true even for us moms), and therefore, we pray God brings solids to us, and we pray we are solids to others.
- Excitement for learning. In 6th grade I started hating science. My teacher wrote definition after definition on the chalk board. Then, I copied definition after definition off the chalk board into a notebook. Excitement factor zero. Desire to learn more? Zero. In high school, we dissected worms, toads, and fish. Excitement factor ten. Desire to learn more? Ten.
- Safety. From walks home off the bus to walks into the school for basketball practice.
- Feel included. We need each other, and we need to feel as if we belong. So do our girls.
- Take a chance. No longer does wanting to play the game mean our girls are entitled to a spot on the team, but taking a chance proves scary. Who cares. I pray my girl takes that chance any way.
- Stay Healthy. Stress + germs = sickness.
- Grow Closer to God. I pray with each passing year, my girl’s relationship with God becomes stronger. I pray she grows an unshakeable love for God.
- Reminders of God pop-up throughout the day. I pray when the world seems too busy, reminders of God’s greatness fills my girl’s head.
Written by By: Amy L. Sullivan
