Ready Or Not...

First grade starts tomorrow. Leeann is so excited and so ready for this. I am so not ready for this!

6.5 hours a day. 5 days a week. Friends, lunches, homework, play-dates, tears, triumphs, accomplishments, struggles, memories, teachers, games, field-trips...

The good, the bad and the ugly begin tomorrow. First grade!

As we begin a new school year my prayer for Leeann is this:

Lord, help me to navigate the waters of life with my daughter. Please, help me to be the kind of mommy that is deeply involved in her life and her education. I am begging that you teach me how to be the kind of mommy that she wants to talk to, share with, bounce ideas of, confide in, cry with, dream with and pray with.

I pray that you would protect her heart and her mind. I am not asking you to keep her from 'mean kids', but that you would be her strength, her hope and her refuge as she interacts with the world. I pray that you would help her see each and every person's need for you. And with that firmly grasped in her mind I pray that she would be your light and your mouth-piece in this fallen world.

Please bring around her some good, life-long friends that she can grow and learn with. Help her to stand strong, and to always do what's right. Please help her to navigate through the waters of peer-pressure ahead. When she succumbs to it, help her learn and grow from her mistakes. Help me to be sympathetic and to do more correcting than punishing. Help me to point her toward you, the one who loves her even more than I could ever imagine. She is yours and you have trusted me with her for this short period of time. Grow her into the young lady, and eventually woman, that you have planned for her to be. Thanks for letting me be her mommy! Amen.