Before I had kids, a wise woman made a statement I have never forgotten: “The theory of a baby and the reality of one are two very different things.” As a young woman with hopes of raising a family, I grasped her meaning only slightly. Once that first baby scream hit the airwaves in the delivery room, my understanding grew immediately.

There is no way to prepare for motherhood. Worse, no one tells you that the rules change every three to five years as the littles grow into bundles of miniature energy balls, ultimately developing into bigger humans with their own thoughts and ideas — lots of them that they don’t mind expressing.

In all these stages, a mother prays, sometimes for patience, others for wisdom, some days  simple survival. As our kids grow older and we learn to navigate the hurricane level storm waves that teenage-hood and young adult land bring along, our prayers can get desperate, pleading, and fearful. On those days, my wise female friend’s words ring back in my ear with a slight alteration: “The theory of raising teenagers and the reality are two very different things.”

Before we have kids or teenagers, we brimmed with ideas on how it would go, what we would do in each situation, or how our kids would act, do, say, and be. Let’s pause and moment and laugh. If there is one thing we know now, very little of that ends up being true.  The truth is the only thing most of us know in these situations is that prayer is our greatest weapon, and if we want to boost those prayers, we pray scripture over those wild and wooly almost adults.

In these past two years, I’ve learned one thing. I don’t pray out of fear for my children. I will not live in anxiety and worry because I serve a God who loves my kids more than I do and will chase them to the corners of the world should they decide to run there. What a comfort!

At such a crossroads place like almost adult-hood (those years from the last part of high school through college or the working world), I’ve learned that one prayer brings my heart peace. One prayer that covers all those little worries and hopes for the future.

{I} ask God to give you a complete understanding of what He wants to do in your lives and {I} ask Him to make you wise with spiritual wisdom. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and you will continually do good, kind things for others. All the while, you will learn to know God better and better (Colossians 1:9b-10). 

With God chasing them and our prayers for their greater understanding of who He truly is, we can have peace. As we pray this prayer, we can also ask the Lord to reveal those moments to us when he makes himself known to our kids. And my friend, he will. He does! I know this to be true.

So if you are pleading with God over your children in a million different areas, or maybe it’s just one vital area, keep it up. Join me in claiming this verse from Colossians and let’s watch together as the Lord reveals himself in the most delightful, maybe a little painful, but always loving way to our kiddos — I mean, to our almost adults.