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Prayer, Plain and Simple

What else can I do for my child?  Is my best ever enough? Writer and speaker Jennifer Schuchmann faces the sobering truth: she could never perfectly protect her son.  Jennifer wrote the following for a project she and I developed to help parents pray for their school-aged children. Jennifer and I have also written two…

Each day this month we are offering one prayer for one aspect of our children’s education.  Imagine the power of hundreds and thousands of us praying together for schools.  Even if you don’t have children yourself, you have some children in your life – nieces and nephews, grandchildren, neighbors. They all need your spiritual blessings.…

In the Peach Buzz section of the Atlanta Journal Constitution, Tyler Perry, a friend of Whitney Houston, asked fans of Houston to pray for her. He suggested that as they went out to buy her latest album, “I Look to You” in stores and online, whisper a prayer for her because “She is looking to you and to…

Praying for and with our children is the only sure formula for raising fear-resistant kids — kids with real faith. There’s a Biblical precedent for this in the New Testament story that played out in the life of a young man named Timothy. Tracking Timothy’s remarkable life we find profound answers for our roles as…

In 1998 Newsweek ran a cover story titled “DO PARENTS MATTER?” prompted by the release of a controversial book by Judith Harris called The Nurture Assumption. Harris attempted to show that parents’ behavior toward children – for better or worse – has very little influence in the development of a child’s wellbeing. In the age…

While we were doing research for our books, Six Prayers God Always Answers, and Nine Ways God Always Speaks, Jennifer Schuchmann and I developed a project to help parents pray for their school-aged children. Here’s the third of 30 simple prayers we crafted. This one offers a special blessing for the teachers who dedicate their lives…

“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging” (Psalm 46:1-2 NIV). A powerful, 7.0 earthquake shook Southern Indonesia on…

The song “Sabbath Prayer” in the Broadway musical, Fiddler on the Roof (book by Joseph Stein, music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, based on the stories of Sholom Aleichem) gives a wonderful model for blessing our daughters. Here are the lyrics for this song. Use them as a prayer of blessing in your own…

I admit it, I am a paranoid parent, and a horror story like the kidnapping and 18 year imprisonment of Jaycee Lee Dugard only feeds those fears. By now we know the abominable details: a beautiful 11 year girl was abducted by a convicted sex offender and held in bondage for nearly two decades, forced…

A couple years ago Jennifer Schuchmann and I – we co-author Six Prayers God Always Answers, and Nine Ways God Always Speaks – worked on a project to help parents pray for their schoolaged children. Here’s the second of 30 simple prayers we offered, each targeting a specific need. This one offers a blessing for the adults who…
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