A Prayer for My Children
You have prayed this one in a hospital corridor, in a car outside a school, and standing in a dark hallway listening for breathing. Here it is written down.
A mother’s prayer for her children can be as plain as asking for their safety, their character, and their faith. Numbers 6:24-26 — “The LORD bless you and keep you” — is the oldest blessing in Scripture and still the best place to start.
‘May the LORD bless you and keep you; may the LORD cause His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; may the LORD lift up His countenance toward you and give you peace.’
Then all your sons will be taught by the LORD, and great will be their prosperity.
Children are indeed a heritage from the LORD, and the fruit of the womb is His reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are children born in one’s youth.
Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.
For He will command His angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways.
So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still in the distance, his father saw him and was filled with compassion. He ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him.
Each year his mother would make him a little robe and bring it to him when she went with her husband to offer the annual sacrifice.
“Can a woman forget her nursing child, or lack compassion for the son of her womb? Even if she could forget, I will not forget you! Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands; your walls are ever before Me.
The LORD will guard you from all evil; He will preserve your soul. The LORD will watch over your coming and going, both now and forevermore.
The prayer
Lord, they are Yours before they are mine. I keep forgetting that, so I am saying it out loud.
Keep them. Keep their bodies safe in the places I cannot follow, and keep their hearts soft in the places that will try to harden them.
Give them one true friend. Give them courage when they are the only one standing still. Let them be kind to the child no one else is kind to.
Where I have got it wrong — and I have — cover the gaps I have left. Do not let my worst days be the ones that shape them.
Draw them to Yourself early, and if they wander, do not let go. Amen.
Praying through the different ages
For small children the prayer is mostly protection and sleep. For older ones it becomes character: honesty, courage, the friends they choose. For grown children it becomes something harder — praying for a life you no longer have any say in.
Each stage asks you to hold on and let go at the same time. Hannah did both in one gesture: she asked God for a son and then handed him back, and kept sewing him a coat every year (1 Samuel 2:19). Letting go was not the end of her mothering. It changed its form.
If your child has walked away
Keep praying. Luke 15 has the father watching a road, and the text says he saw his son “while he was still a long way off” — which means he was looking. Watching a road is a kind of faithfulness.
There is a fuller page for that season at a prodigal child.
Where these words come from
Numbers 6:24-26 is the priestly blessing, spoken over God’s people for three thousand years. Isaiah 54:13 promises that children taught by the LORD will have great peace, and 3 John 1:4 names the joy of seeing your children walk in truth. Psalm 127:3 is the reminder underneath all of it: they are a heritage, entrusted rather than owned.
Praying this for someone specific?
Light a candle for her — and come back to tend it tomorrow.