Yesterday, I bought school supplies. I ordered our new curriculum last week (because we homeschool) and it’ll be here in the next day or so. When it arrives, I’ll spend time pouring over it, getting to know it, and organizing it on our new bookshelves we had to buy because…well…all the books.

I’ve completely redone my dining room to make it serve us better as an office/homeschool room and it makes me so happy I just want to sit in there all the time.

This week, I’ll prepare loads of homemade bread, muffins, and pancakes, and then stuff them all in the freezer to help out with the morning flow.

Over all, I think I’m ready.

And while it’s important to be physically, and emotionally ready to start school (whether you homeschool, public school, or private school), it’s much more important to be spiritually ready. So this morning, I want to share the most important way I’m preparing for the school year at the McGlothlin Home for Boys.

Prayer.

As we look ahead to the challenges and joys of a new school year, absolutely nothing is more important than covering our boys in prayer. We can’t always control our son’s behavior, but we can shape their hearts with our prayers (<—Tweet That).

There are so many things that threaten to steal our boys away. Non-Christian friends, ungodly influences, personal weaknesses that leave them exposed and ready for the enemy’s attack. It’s enough to make a mom want to keep her son locked up in his bedroom until he’s 20!

If I let myself dwell on those things, I get overwhelmed, and lose sight of the power of God at work in them. I used to beg God to keep my boys far from evil. I wanted to protect them from even being touched by it with a fierceness something like what I feel when my boys get made fun of, or are hurt by others (you know…the kind of fierceness that makes you want to rip someone’s head off? I know I’m not the only one….). But then I realized that as humans, simply living on the earth will expose them to evil every single day.

Now, I pray that God will give them strength to stand in the face of evil.

So as I studied my boys over the summer, watching them interact with others at the pool, and taking opportunities to engage in long, luxurious talks about all the things that matter, I saw patterns of weakness and sin, strength and character, emerge from their hearts. My back-to-school prayer for them focuses on these things for this school year. Each year, I’ll do the same.

My hope is to fill an entire binder with the prayers of my heart for them that shout, “Your mama was watching, noticing, loving, and praying for you the entire way.”

A Back-to-School Prayer for Moms of Boys

Of course, this prayer is very specific to the needs of my boys, but you’re welcome to use it for your own if it suits you. If you read it below and think, “that’s awesome, but I’m not sure it’s what my boys need most right now,” I invite you to pick up an inexpensive copy of my Companion Guide to Praying for Boys, where I share the exact, step-by-step process for how I craft unique, scripture-based prayers for my boys. It’ll help you become a student of your own boy, and empower you to search the scriptures for exactly what he needs.

Below, you’ll find my prayer. Feel free to copy and paste it to a document and print it out for your own home.

“Father, thank you for new beginnings, and thank you for my son. Help me to always see him as a creation made in your image with worth, value, a future and a hope. May he wake every morning free from the day before, and embrace your new mercies for the one he’s in.

Above all else, may he know he’s loved with an everlasting love, and that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate him from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

Let him know in his heart that if God is for him, who can be against him? Enlighten the eyes of his heart, so that he may know the hope to which he has been called.

May he love the Lord his God with all his heart, soul, and might. May he be strong and courageous, not turning to the right or left of God’s law so that he may have good success wherever he goes.

May he trust in your steadfast love, and rejoice in his salvation. Keep his mind stayed on whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable. If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise keep his mind on those things. Give him strength to take every thought captive to obey Christ, and may your voice, God, be the loudest one he hears.

May he not love the world, or the things in the world, but instead, present his body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. May he not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of his mind, so that he can discern the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

Surround him with friends who put all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander away, and instead embrace kindness, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave them. Let no corrupt talk come out of his mouth, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.

May he take up the whole armor of God, that he may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm.

Lord, bless him, and keep him, make your face shine upon him, be gracious to him, and give him peace. In Jesus’ name, amen.”

Genesis 1:27, Jeremiah 29:11, Lamentations 3:23, Jeremiah 31:3, Romans 8:38-39, Romans 8:31, Ephesians 1:18, Deuteronomy 6:5, Joshua 1:7, Psalm 13:5, Philippians 4:8, 2 Corinthians 10:5, 1 John 2:15, Romans 12:1-2, Ephesians 4: 31-32, Ephesians 4:29, Ephesians 6:13, Numbers 6:24-26.

More Resources to Help you Pray

The Praying for Boys 5-day Prayer Challenge (praying through Ephesians 6, the whole armor of God…a free challenge for mothers of boys)

Serving Together,
Brooke