Mamas, Stronger Together – Guest Series: Christian mothers have such a strength when we let down our guard and get real with each other, stop comparing ourselves to other mothers, when we stop making motherhood a competition, and instead build each other up as fellow mothers! Over the next weeks, we will hear from various Christian mamas who are each brave, beautiful, and strong in sharing the messages God has placed on their hearts. Enjoy the below message of encouragement from Dawn Lang.

My three-year-old redhead had all the precociousness that his redheaded mama had at that age, or so I am told. He wasn’t a bad kid by any means, he was as sweet as pie, still is. He never meant to cause trouble, it just seemed to find him.

While shopping one day, I stopped at the circular rack to look at dresses, most of them reaching the floor. In a matter of seconds, I realized that he was no longer next to me. If you’re a mama, I don’t need to explain the terror that washed over me. He had to be close, he was just there! I darted through the open floor plan of the women’s department calling his name, not really caring if I was causing a stir. He was simply gone! At three, I admit, kids are fast, but clumsy fast. Had someone grabbed him without me seeing?

I stood there, frozen with fear, calculating my next steps when I heard it. A child’s giggles drifting through the racks. I ran back and shoved the dresses aside to find my little boy, completely unaware that he had just taken years off my life. I thought, I can’t wait until they are older so I won’t be scared of something happening to them, all the time! Little did I know that the worries never go away, they just change. The fears that develop once they are living life without you directing their every move is scarier than searching for them under clothing racks.

My sons are in their twenties now, and I can assure you that the worries of a mother’s heart don’t stop once they become teenagers. It’s no longer about scraped knees and “stranger danger,” but it’s worries about them navigating the world on their own. The only thing that got me through being a young mom is the same that gets me through as a “senior” mom, and that is prayer.

I revisited I Samuel 1:27-28 often as a young mom. “I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of Him. So now I give him to the Lord.” Unlike Hannah, who gave her son Samuel to the service of the temple, my dedication was a figurative submission to God. Like everything else that He has given to us in this life, our children belong to God first. They are simply on loan to us to raise for the purpose that He has for them. Jeremiah 1:5 says, “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart.” In Jeremiah’s case, that was to be prophet. Our children are set apart for their own purpose. That’s a lot of responsibility to put on a parent!

Thankfully, we don’t have to take that job on alone! We forget sometimes that God knows our kids better than we do and as hard as it might be to believe, He loves them even more than we are able. He made them to be the unique individuals that only they can be. So, if you’re at your wits end and all you can do is pray, mama, that is the single most valuable weapon in your arsenal. The Bible says that the Word of God is sharper than any two-edged sword. (Hebrews 4:12) So learn to wield it with power! Pray God’s Word back to Him over your kids.

Since I’m OCD and need a plan and an Org Chart, I started spending my prayer time with a notebook, pencil, and the Internet. I marked a page for each son and then started listing the things on my heart to pray for them and over them along with a scripture to pray back. Some things came easy like personal salvation or protection, others took time to reveal themselves through prayer. If I wanted to pray for their “Future” I might write out Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord.  Plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” I did this until I had a list and verse for thirty-one things, one for every day of the month. And that’s how I prayed. Every day during my prayer time, I made sure to cover whatever the verses were for my sons that day. And my concerns would change over time, so my list would change with them.

That notebook was lost over the years, but the impact of those verses and those prayers from a desperate young mom are still there. I still pray over my young men, maybe now more than ever, and I often think about making another notebook.

But for now, I simply pray Isaiah 55:11 and remind God that He said “so shall my Word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the things for which I sent it.”  I remind Him that my sons still belong to Him and ask that He remember the scripture that their Mama prayed over them. He promised that His Word would accomplish what it started and that His Word would not return to Him empty. Thankfully, I don’t really have to remind Him of that. He already remembers His promises. But sometimes I just need to remind myself.

Dawn Lang makes her home in the land of crab cakes and Berger cookies. She’s a Mama on a mission to edify and inspire young women trying to find their place in God’s world. She recently upgraded her status from Mom to Lolli and strives not only to be a Proverbs 31 woman but a Titus 2 woman as well. Follow her on:

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