Jennifer, from California requests prayer:
Please pray for my adult sons Steven and Kevin. Steven has autism and is recovering from a heart bypass, tumor removed and left lung removal surgery. Please pray for his speedy and complete healing. Please pray for his bipolar depression symptoms. He is extremely lonely and has no friends. Steven also wants to live in his own place. My son Kevin is struggling to financially support his family. He has 4 children. He has a job that has really slowed down. Please pray that God will bless his entrepreneurial businesses to be successful so that he can always take care of his family whether work at his job is slow or not. Pray that God will bless Steven and Kevin with a desire to grow in their knowledge of Him. Thank you so much, may God bless you.
Return to the Partners in Prayer page.
www.hopefortheheart.org
Parents of adult children need to pray powerful prayers when they pray for their children, when their son or daughter goes through a problem or a life crisis such as marriage problems, divorce, unemployment, job problems, child custody issues, a crisis of faith, depression, addiction, family quarrels or other stressful situations. Here is a prayer for the restoration of grown sons and daughters that parents of adult children can pray using Bible verses from Isaiah 49:8-18. (NIV)
Dear Heavenly Father, I come to you as a fellow parent, knowing that you understand how my heart breaks for __________________(name) my grown child’s situation. I am praying now for your help and hope to be reborn in all of us as I pray the words of Isaiah over them.
This is what the Lord says;
“In the time of my favor I will answer you, and in the day of salvation I will help you; I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people, to restore the land and to reassign its desolate inheritance, to say to the captives, ‘Come out,’ and to those in darkness, ‘Be free!’
I claim this prayer time as the day of favor for my child. I thank you that you have promised to help us. I thank you that you have promised to restore the lost and broken parts. Here are some specific things that need restoration in my child’s life __________________________________
I thank you that you promise to be my child’s keeper. Here are the things that I can’t do for them that I place into your keeping _____________________________________
I thank you that you promise that you will set them free. Here are things from which my child needs to be set free today _________________________________________________________________
They will feed beside the roads and find pasture on every barren hill. They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat upon them. He who has compassion will guide them and lead them besides springs of water. I will turn all my mountains into roads and my highways will be raised up. See, they will come from afar – some from the north, some from the west, some from the region of Aswan.
I thank you that you can provide for the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of my child today. Here are some of the most pressing needs they have___________________________________________
I thank you that you feel deep compassion for them, that you want to see them well and whole and joyous and in good relationships with others and with yourself. Here are some things that break my heart and worry me about my child’s situation_________________________________________
I pray that you will guide my child to the help they need. I pray that you will give them rest and give them the strength for the journey back to stability. Here are the issues on which my child needs your guidance today_____________________________________________________________
Shout for joy, O heavens; rejoice, O earth; burst into song, O mountains! For the Lord comforts his people and will have compassion on his afflicted ones.
I praise you now for the comfort you are bringing me that you are with us all and that you care deeply.
But Zion said, “The Lord has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.” “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will never forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me. Your sons hasten back, and those who laid you waste depart from you. Lift up your eyes and look around; all your sons gather and come to you. As surely as I live,” declares the lord, “You will wear them all as ornaments, you will put them on like a bride.”
Dear Father, help my child to not feel alone and forgotten by the world or by you. Instead, help them turn to you that they may be healed and helped. Help them to know the deep love I have for them as a parent. I ask for your guidance on how to express my deep love for my child in a way that they will accept and understand. Please give me one specific thought or idea now____________________________
Help me to trust you totally, knowing that you have not forgotten me or my child. Help me to stand in your presence, knowing that you always see me. I pray against the following things that have laid waste to my child. May these things depart from them by your power_______________________________
I now end my prayer, lifting my eyes toward you, believing that you are at work in ways I will soon see. I thank you for the gathering back in of my child to you and to our family. May our family’s beautiful love and joy together be apparent for all to see.
I pray these things in the strong and loving name of Jesus Christ, God’s only son. Amen
Helpful Links:
Praying for those who can’t pray for themselves using standing in the gap prayers
Travailing in prayer over big problems
Losing hope prayer that restores hope through personal prayer
Praying about romantic relationships concerns for a family member
Praying about child custody problems
Prayer for children and grandchildren with problems and difficulties
Grieving child prayer for adults helping a child after someone they love dies
Copyright Karen Barber 2013. All rights reserved
prayerideas.org
This is one of my favorite things ever written. Gen. Douglas MacArthur wrote this prayer for his son.
A Prayer For My Son
Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.
Build me a son whose wishes will not take the place of deeds; a son who will know Thee — and that to know himself is the foundation stone of knowledge.
Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.
Build me a son whose heart will be clear, whose goals will be high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.
And after all these things are his, give him, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of true greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, and the meekness of true strength.
Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, “I have not lived in vain.”
An absolute classic. I get a lot of comments on this, and if you enjoy it, then chances are good you’ll also appreciate this piece, called “Prayer of an Unknown Confederate Soldier.”
www.thecotas.com
