Resources
How To Behold Your Child
Behold. It’s a powerful word in Scripture. An invitation to stop and pay attention. To open our eyes because God is about to do something new. What if we tried to behold our life? To behold our children. To try to see them with God’s eyes. With love. And compassion. And hope. Let yourself try…
READ MORE
Encouragement for When You Want to Give Up on Lent
If you’ve given up on Lent, If your best intentions have fallen short, If you want to quit, If you never got started Imagine what you might say to your child… When they’re struggling with school or work, When they’re feeling overwhelmed, When they want to quit something they’ve started, When they’re angry, hungry, or…
READ MORE
Breath Prayers for Parents in Lent
For fasting Inhale: Help me let go. Exhale: Let me find You. Inhale: When I feel like I lack Exhale: Let me know You are near. For alms-giving Inhale: Help me give what I can. Exhale: Show Your face to my heart. Inhale: Whatever we have Exhale: Is given to share. For deeper prayer Inhale:…
READ MORE
Lenten Scriptures for Parents
Parents and children are at the heart of Lent. Let these Scripture passages remind you of the power of sharing your faith with your kids in this sacred season. Teaching children You shall put these words of mine in your heart and soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and…
READ MORE
Prayers for Parenting in Impossible Times
School shootings. Pandemic parenting. Racial violence, wars, natural disasters, civil unrest. Parenting right now can feel impossible. When you’re fumbling for the words to pray, our Mothering Spirit writers have powerful prayers to give voice to your deepest fears and hopes as a parent. A Prayer for Gun Violence in Schools by Kayla Craig A…
READ MORE
3 Ways to Prepare for Lent (When You’re A Parent)
1. Focus on what’s simple Try these 3 easy approaches for Lent: Read the details here: How To Live Lent as a Busy Mother. 2. Find a good book: for yourself and for your child Here is a list of our favorite Lenten books for children (and more ideas for Easter basket books for birth-6 years and 6-12 years). Don’t forget…
READ MORE
Prayers for the Hard Days of Parenting
Angry? Frustrated? Stressed out? We’ve been there. We’ve prayed through it, too. Here are a few words for when you feel like you’re going to lose it as a parent. 1. Breath prayers Inhale: Breathe in peace (love, hope, joy).Exhale: Breathe out fear (anger, grief, stress). Inhale: You are with me, God.Exhale: I am not…
READ MORE
Prayers for When Your Child is Sick
1. A Breath Prayer The easiest prayers for a sick child, to pray at their bedside as you keep vigil while they are suffering. Pray one line as you breathe in and one line as you breathe out. Inhale: Heal my child, Lord. Exhale: Heal me, too. Inhale: You love my child. Exhale: Help me…
READ MORE
3 Ways to Pray about Your Phone Use as a Parent
Holly’s essay about video games and Meta’s blessing for a child’s first phone got us thinking about more ways to pray about technology and our families. What would you add to the list to approach our own screen time as parents from a faith perspective? 1. Pray about your own screen time 2. Make a…
READ MORE
3 Practical Tips When You’re Wrestling With Faith
1. Turn to well-worn prayers. Try these by Thomas Merton and St. Anselm of Canterbury if you need words for your wondering or wandering. 2. Pray with the story of Jacob wrestling with God. The same night [Jacob] got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the…
READ MORE
Want to Pray through Birth?
At Mothering Spirit, we believe mothers need more resources for pregnancy and birth, both the beautiful and painful parts of bringing new life into the world. Here are a few of our favorites: 1. When you’re preparing for birth Get a copy of our e-books: Prayers for Pregnancy & Prayers for Birth. The collections feature prayers for pregnancy…
READ MORE
3 Ways to Pray through Epiphany
1. Light a candle before dinner tonight. Ask your kids to see if you can sit in silence together for a whole minute. Enjoy whatever moment of quiet you can get with this symbol of Christ’s light. 2. Write down one new thing you have learned about God in the past year—even a small “epiphany.”…
READ MORE
The cold had run its course through our whole family, taking down each man, woman, and child for days at a time, eating up the entire month of March in early 2011. While everyone else recovered, even five-month-old Teddy, Fulton struggled, weak and congested, long past the point when the other four were back to…
READ MORE
For years when I was young, my mom took nightly baths, and I would join her. We would pile our thick, black hair on top of our heads, so strong and stiff it would shoot up like onion sprouts. We scrubbed each other’s backs with neon-colored, nylon washcloths, as if we were scrubbing potato skins…
READ MORE
We sit in a small office off the main hallway. The insurance representative is pulling all the forms for me, the new hire at a medical records office. He spots the ring on my finger, my grandmother’s diamond newly set in the band. “Married?” he casually asks. “No. We are thinking of moving the date…
READ MORE
I’m pushing the stroller around the corner when the podcast I’m streaming cuts out. I frown and glance at my phone. Out of battery. I’ve just promised my older kids thirty more minutes of park time with friends while I walk the nearby sidewalks. What am I supposed to do with no podcasts, music, or…
READ MORE
Life is so crazy. I used to think that I was doing it all wrong, that because I hadn’t figured out the secret code that every one else seemed to know, God was not interested in helping me with my life. I grew up going to a First Baptist Church in a small, rural south Texas town. I…
READ MORE
Even before being discharged from the hospital following the birth of my second child, Isaac, I discovered my blood pressure increased. In the weeks leading to delivery at check-ups, the nurses had to double-check my pressure multiple times as the numbers kept getting higher and higher. I never needed additional medicine or a hospital stay,…
READ MORE
This is how I ask the question of suffering now. I used to ask about theories, about how God’s goodness could square with God’s love, how different properties of God made sense in light of suffering. I used to read books about suffering and cry and wonder, in a safely academic way, how these stories…
READ MORE
This Is My Body, Given for You When the hour came, he took his place at the table, and the apostles with him…Then he took a loaf of bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this…
READ MORE
Many of us pray with our kids before bed. But what does it mean to bless our children? Enjoy this excerpt from The Beauty of Motherhood along with a practice, prayer, and ritual you can use to pray for your children (and others) at night. While my kids sleep, I say a prayer for their…
READ MORE
Scripture offers tender images of God caring for us like a loving mother. But we don’t often get the chance to sit with these beautiful passages. Let yourself pray with a new image of God this week. God as comforting mother “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.” (Isaiah 66:13) Jesus…
READ MORE
Loving God, this trudge toward Easter has been long and the sustenance meager. I find myself coming to you with empty hands and aching arms, from the effort of carrying a cross I did not choose. You know all too well that choosing a sacrifice this year was a luxury. In the midst of it…
READ MORE
Today’s parents in the United States are regularly confronted with the horror of yet another school shooting. Each time this happens, we feel angry and anguished, grieving the tragedy and overwhelmed by what this means for our own children. Our faith compels us to cry out against violence and evil. God promises to hear our…
READ MORE