I walked 3 mornings a week last summer (bless you warm weather & small town):
When I walked there and back, I started to pray. The intense workout helps my mental and physical health. The peaceful walk home does too. I’ve struggled a bit more with patience and good responses to my children. So recently, I found praying helps prepare my heart before coming home to my family. Here are some things I’ve prayed recently. I hope it encourages someone:
Lord, today give me patience for the chaos that comes when I walk in that door. Even through emotions, noise, problems to solve, or frantic activity, may I be a ballast in our home. Diffusing quarrels and anxious little people by quieting my own soul in the moment. Like a weaned child with it’s mother, so may my soul be within me.
Psalm 131
Give me discernment with how to respond to their needs with wisdom and calm composure with my words. May my soft answers turn away wrath, rather than harsh words that stir up anger.
Proverbs 15:1
Let my instructional words be few. When I do need to speak may it be clear and concise. I recognize when I give my children too many words, it can be a form of trying to control. Let my brief word stand, not superfluous words that overwhelm them. Let my heart not be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven and I am on earth. Therefore let my words be few.
Ecclesiastes 5:2
Help me to know when discipline is required. May the consequences for their disobedience be measured, carried out without anger or provocation, and fitting. May I remember not to be surprised that my children are sinners and in process, and therefore need my help to shape and shepherd them by your grace.
Colossians 3:21
May my discipline always be done in Gospel love. They need to know how much they are loved by you first Father. Loving them means not wavering and following through. May I remember that for the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
Hebrews 12:11
May I not be idle with my time and may the memory my children have etched in their minds not be me on my phone, but rather a Mom who is fully present, fully invested and fully caring for them.
Psalm 119:37-Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways.
And as with anything else that I set out to do in faith, when I inevitably fail, remind my own fickle, wandering heart to remember your Gospel love towards me. You are the perfect one that I must point them to. The blood of your son, Jesus, covers all my sins; past, present, and future. And you are making all things new, beginning in these four walls.
Amen
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