Dear God......

One of the realities that kept me going through all the doubts and fears of homeschooling for seventeen years was that I knew for a fact my kids’ teacher prayed every day. I couldn’t think of facing them without divine power. I’m sure lots of homeschoolers agree.

I thought today I would share with you all some of the prayers that made my list in that season of my life.
• Confession for how I had failed the day before. For His cleansing and restoring power.
• The filling of the Holy Spirit
• Patience –I used to shy away from this prayer for fear the Lord would give me opportunities to practice during the day, but realized I needed to gut it up and face my desperate need for patience no matter what that meant. (I had to laugh when people would tell me they could never homeschool because they didn’t have the patience. Whoa, were they over-estimating me!)
• Order and discipline—since I was not gifted with either naturally
• Wisdom in choosing activities, discipline, and encouragement
• Fun
• Relationships between my children and me and my children
• My children’s character and godly development. I knew very well where my children were weak and made a practice of praying Scripture over those areas.
• Guidance to see where the Lord may be leading my children so I could help prepare them.
• God would cover where I was weak.
• God would give me confidence in His call.
• Above all else God would be honored and pleased by our school
• That I wouldn’t freak out about areas of difficulty –for example, spelling!
• Peace
• Efficiency
• Good Christian friends for my children—and me
• God would provide the opportunities my children would need to be the people He made them to be (tennis coach for my daughter, baseball team for my son, etc)
• And this might sound like a made-up prayer, but I honestly prayed it often—God, please don’t let me ruin them!
I have to say, we had our share of difficulties, but God was good and gracious to his poor, pathetic daughter who woke up every morning sure she had heard God wrong about this whole homeschooling deal, and that she was in way over her head. So I guess I can say –Praise the Lord! He answered my prayers!

What are some of the prayers on your list?