This Prayer For Your Back To School Week

They are heading back, Lord, our little (or not so little anymore) people. Back to hallways, desks, math, writing assignments, lockers and playgrounds. They are lacing up their brand new sneakers, strapping on their heavy backpacks and walking right out creaky old doors into their new years. And I make the peanut butter sandwiches, fill the water bottles and suggest that maybe we should comb some hair, but Lord it feels all out of my control now.

I won’t go with them. I won’t be there to remind them to look up when an adult is speaking to them, to be kind to the kid who sits next to them at lunch, to walk in the hallway or not to act like a lunatic in the bus line. I won’t be there, Lord, what if it doesn’t go well …

You see, it feels like they might not be ready for all of this, Lord. I am sure I forgot to teach them something they need to know. I mean did you see how summer went down?

I meant to make them do math … but then I didn’t. And I meant to make them read more … and the little one still can’t spell and the older one has the messiest handwriting. And, Lord, remember the day I yelled and confiscated all the screens and put them all in their rooms for hours. Lord, what if they write about that in their “What I did this summer” journal? What if I didn’t do it right, Lord? What if they mess up?

What if these little pieces of my heart walk into these new classrooms and school buildings and it all goes wrong? What then Lord?

They are not yours, God whispers quietly to my troubled heart as this stream of consciousness prayer rolls on throughout the morning. They are mine. And I am with them always. And I love them no matter what.

God has to remind me of this every year. These children he has given me are not my products to perfect and show off to all the world. They are his works; designed to display his glory. He is working his purposes out in their lives and he loves them, oh how he loves them.

Lord, love on them this week, these kids heading back into days of new things, new places, new people and new work. Walk beside them, make a way out in front of them and trail behind them that they may be so aware of your presence.

Whisper how you love them even when the days are hard, when the math makes no sense, when they can’t remember how to spell and the locker combination doesn’t work — remind them that you see them. That they are created in your image and that they are good, very good because of you.

And us moms and dads; so anxious for these kids to succeed, whisper it to us too. It isn’t up to us to do it all right; it isn’t up to us to send our children out as these perfectly polished products.

Because the miracle isn’t always in the way we make it look perfect – the miracle is in the way we turn and see you, the God of all Creation, here with us.

The miracle is that you came to be with us and you dwell among us right in the middle of the mundane and the messy ordinary back to school weeks that make up our lives. The miracle is that your glory, Lord shines best when we simply get out of the way.

So, Father, we pray your blessings over all these schools; the ones that open this week and in the weeks to come and over all the students and teachers and parents. May we have eyes to see you at work in your people everywhere and may we always be grateful that you never call us to be perfect – you only call us to follow you.

“Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy- to the only God our Savior, be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord before all ages now and forevermore, Amen!” (Jude 1:24-25).