One of our kids is a bit harder for us to raise then our other three. We are on a constant roller coaster of emotions and behaviors with this child. We have a week or two of good, followed by a week or two of ok, followed by a week or two of horrible, and on the cycle goes.
Recently, we found ourselves at the bottom of one of those cycles. I was sitting in my room racking my brain to come up with ideas on what in the world to do. Should we do time outs? Are we missing something in our Love and Logic steps? What will get the message across? Does this child need more attention or less? How do I keep my other kids safe? And in all that racking and thinking and planning I completely left out God.
Not once during this cycle had I sat down to truly focus on God and what he would want me to do with child. Everything was me and my answer. Everything was by my own power and not the power that God had placed right in me, the Holy Spirit.
Tony and I have committed to taking a certain amount of time to pray specifically for this child and the issues we are having. Is is helping? I would say we are swinging up on that cycle but I haven't seen a HUGE impact on the behavior. However, I have changed. I have found that my prayers are for this child in particular, they are for my relationship with them. I pray that I would find and seek out time to connect, that I would love deeply despite the behavior, that I would sit down in their mess and show them I'm not going anywhere.
Prayer changes things. It's not necessarily in the way we think. It may not change that person or that situation but it helps the person praying to align their heart with God and seek His will in what they would do.
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