One radiated young energy and kindness. Her effervescent smile lit up the classroom. Another is a vivacious mom to boys and lover of sports. A third is an older gentleman with a quiet demeanor and a beautiful ability to speak life into the souls of tweens. One helped identify a struggle, another called out, connected with and began to hone a strength.
My growing-too-fast boy has learned everything from single digit subtraction to Roman history from some of the best teachers I could imagine. Each of them was remarkably different, but what is one thing they all had in common?
I was praying for them.
Sometimes I knew specifically something about which they’d ask me to pray. Others may not have even known it was happening! Sometimes I prayed consistently. Sometimes alone, and sometimes with a group. I prayed for their strength, and their wisdom. I prayed for their leadership and the words they spoke. I prayed for understanding of them and ways I could serve them.
In Colossians, Paul writes to fellow Christians:
Since we first heard about you, we’ve kept you always in our prayers that you would receive the perfect knowledge of God’s pleasure over your lives, making reservoirs of every kind of wisdom and spiritual understanding. We pray that you would walk in the ways of true righteousness, pleasing God in every good thing you do. Then you’ll become fruit-bearing branches, yielding to his life, and maturing in the rich experience of knowing God in his fullness! And we pray that you would be energized with all his explosive power from the realm of his magnificent glory, filling you with great hope.
Colossians 1:9-11 (TPT)
Knowledge, wisdom, spiritual understanding, righteousness, energy, and full of hope! Let’s be like Paul and pray this for other believers, and for our children’s teachers!
Friends, when I think about it, the hours are staggering. A child in a self-contained classroom (meaning students don’t switch classes except for lunch and special rotations) could spend over 1000 hours with his teacher during a school year. A child who rotates through her classes spends close to 150 hours in each teachers’ classroom during the school year. How can we, as parents, impact those hours? We can pray for the teachers each day.
Many teachers go back to work this week and this month. And, if I can speak truthfully and vulnerably here for a moment, we are excited – but a little anxious, too, about the new year. I know many of us would love to know we are covered in prayer!
This week, I’m sharing a free printable to download. In it, I give practical, Scripture-based prayer for you to use each day of the week when praying for your child’s teacher or teachers. Download it, use it, share it.
Hugs, blessings and prayers for a school year filled with grace and mercy, Bethany