Should I be praying for my baby? I wondered, looking at my beautiful newborn. But how can I pray for her when it’s difficult to find 15 minutes to shower in the morning?
Like many parents, I felt frustrated at not having time to pray. I even felt guilty because my baby’s needs often dictated the flow of my day, leaving me little time for anything else.
In the book When Mothers Pray, Cheri Fuller suggests, “Rather than seeing [prayer] as time away from our children, we must integrate prayer into our activities with our children — for our sakes and theirs.”
My newborn, like most babies, spent a great amount of time eating. So when I knew my baby would be expecting a feeding, I surrounded my blue rocker with a drink, my Bible and pillows to prop her up. I forced myself to relax from the stresses of scurrying around the house and pray from my recliner to God’s throne.
One of my favorite prayers was based on Psalm 139: “Lord, You saw my baby when she was still inside my womb. You wrote down in Your book every day that was ordained for her before she ever lived one of them. God, I thank You for entrusting me with her life today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
Praying mothers have shaped history as far back as the biblical accounts of Hannah, Mary and Elizabeth. Fuller also recounts in her book the time George Washington went off to join the Virginia militia. Before leaving, he knelt by his mother’s rocking chair while she prayed protection over his life. Washington later credited his mother’s prayers and life example for his surviving many crises and several massacres in the British campaigns that followed.
What a blessed heritage Mary Ball Washington gave us all from her rocking chair! And how honored we are to have the same opportunity to give our children a rich birthright of a loving parent’s example through simple rocking-chair prayers.
— Hope Flinchbaugh
