This Is What I Prayed For

My boy called me this week, and the first thing he told me was how exhausted he was. Praying for adult children looks different than praying for little ones.

He’d had something going on almost every night. All good things, but he was tired!

Then he stopped himself and said, “But I can’t complain. This is what I prayed for.”

And I just smiled.

Because he recognized it himself.

We pray for God to open a door, and then we act surprised that walking through it is work. We pray for movement, and then we wonder why moving makes us tired.

Sometimes the answer to prayer doesn’t feel like rest. Sometimes it feels like a very full week.

But here’s the part that really got me.

I’ve prayed over that boy his whole life. Through the years of raising him alone. Through the seasons when I wondered if I was getting it right. Through the nights when I didn’t know what else to do but pray.

I’ve always wanted him to have a relationship with God that was his own. Not just believe because that’s what I taught him, but to know God for himself.

And now here he is, exhausted on the phone, recognizing his own answered prayer without me having to point it out.

He didn’t just get the blessing. He recognized it.

And that’s what made me smile.

When Our Kids Grow Up: Praying for Adult Children

When our kids are little, we teach them about God. We pray with them, pray for them, and try our best to show them what it looks like to trust Him.

But then they grow up.

And we have to remember that their relationship with God is between them and Him.

Of course, we still encourage them and pray for them. That’s never going to stop! But we can’t live out their faith for them.

Being a single mom, I spent so many years making decisions, figuring things out, and praying that I was raising him well.

And while I still worry about him and probably always will, I also get to enjoy watching him become the man I’ve prayed he would be.

That’s a different kind of blessing.

Learning to Trust the God I Prayed To

Philippians 1:6 reminds us that God finishes the work He starts.

And that’s something I have to remind myself of, too.

I can pray for my boy, encourage him, and be there when he needs me. Praying for adult children means trusting God with the parts I can’t control. But ultimately, I have to trust God with the rest.

And sometimes that’s the harder part.

Not the praying.

The trusting.

Especially when you’ve spent so many years feeling responsible for everything.

But God was never asking me to do His job. He was asking me to trust Him with mine.

The Little Moments That Mean So Much

I’ve been treasuring our conversations lately. Sometimes it’s just one sentence that stays with me long after we’ve hung up.

Earlier this month, he was talking about my book and corrected himself mid-sentence. He went from saying “if” I sell my book to “when” I sell it.

And that little word meant more to me than he probably realized.

Now, here we are again.

A conversation about how tired he is turns into a reminder of God’s faithfulness.

And I love that I get to witness these moments.

Not because I’ve done everything right as a parent. Lord knows I haven’t!

But because God has been faithful through all of it.

My boy called me to tell me how tired he was.

But what I heard was a young man recognizing God’s faithfulness in his own life.

And after all these years of praying for him, that’s something I’ll never take for granted.

Mamas, what’s something you’ve learned about faith while raising your grown children? I’d love to hear your experience.