For the week of: Monday, December 18th 2006

"A Prayer for Small Hearts"

I’m asking for gracious forgiveness from those of you who said you were looking forward to the Shepherd lessons for your munchkins.  I don’t know what convoluted thought process I was experiencing when I committed to doing that during the most heavily scheduled time of my year, but obviously it didn’t come together as planned.  I do, however, want to be a woman of integrity and be committed to what I say I will commit to, so it is going to happen…just not now!

I had planned to write about children and Christmas in this posting and then received a prayer in my e-mail from our like-a-daughter Jen and decided this was far more worthy of sharing than my thoughts.  She often writes out her prayers to people and then gives them to the one she is praying for (I love learning from my children!).  She sent a very tender prayer for me this morning and, in the middle of it, inserted this prayer for the ten children she and another sweet gal care for at Casa de Esperanza, an orphanage in Tegucigalpa, Honduras.  I know the petitions she shares for her ten little ones are the same you desire for your own little hearts, so without taking the time to seek her permission to share it, I am passing it onto Chris for the posting.  Mommas know what mommas need and that’s all there is to it!  Perhaps these words need to be prayed for your children; I’m sure she’d be honored to know you’ve prayed them for hers.

For this home that you have placed this life and heart into at this moment I pray for continued healing.  For so much wisdom and guidance to be imparted by Your Spirit in the moments when we are just clueless as to how to help their pain.  God please continue to be near, and somehow through these vessels please reveal Yourself to them in ways that these little minds and hearts will latch onto and hold onto all the days of their life.  For the privilege of attempting to be Your hands and feet here I praise You.  On the most difficult day Father please help me not to forget what a precious, precious privilege it is to be a part of their little lives.  As they sleep right now God in their little beds, with their warm comforters, full tummies, and hopefully somewhere near full hearts, God I pray that Your name will be written on the hearts of Yovani, Marvin, Mario, Francisco, Antonio, and Fernando and that you would create within them warrior hearts for You.  Chisel and design within them in the ways You know best a heart that will be soft and pliable and bent toward You in a land that doesn't always live like that.  Help them to be soldiers for Your causes and please use us to encourage them to be men of You.  And on the other side of that wall I pray that You would speak love into little girl hearts, ones they can understand even now in their sleep and perhaps while they are dreaming, God please write Your name on the hearts of Katty and Monica, of Maryuri and Cindy.  Lord, please help them to develop a gentle and quiet spirit that pleases You and desires to do what You want them to do.  In moments of rebellion and hurt and acting out now God I pray that You would help us teach them the beauty of submission and how freeing that can be when we submit to You.  Father help them grow up to be women who will serve You and others well, who will be good wives and mommies, who will learn the things here they need to to be able to stand up in a world that encourages anything but holiness.  Father create in them all hearts for holiness, please.  Help us be Your instruments, first through example in all we say and do, but also through instruction and discipline Father.  May You be real to them because of the love they feel through us.  Thank You for the opportunity to tuck them in every night and to sit with them every meal, to look into eyes that need loved so desperately, to pray with them and for them and to hear them pray for us, God for every one of these things I give You all the thanks this heart knows how to muster up and then some. 

And Amen…