This weekend with Handsome K traveling, I found myself on a
day trip about 90 miles away going to a friend’s graduation party. I was simply marveling in my own
success while driving with Baby K appropriately taking his morning nap,
Princess K and Little K quietly plugged into the headphones watching an
educational DVD, and having only left 45 minutes past what I had planned.
I was singing about life being a great adventure along with
one of my favorite musicians and then it happened…
I often believe I have some kind of control over my babies
safety, life choices, or anything for that matter.
But I don’t.
I can’t foresee and prevent everything unsafe from ever
happening to them. That doesn’t
mean I won’t stop teaching them how to make good choices that honor God or that
I won’t attempt to keep them as safe as humanly possible, but there are many
things I cannot premeditate.
Up from the back of my mommy “safe” van, right behind Little
K’s head, a yellow jacket suddenly appeared hovering near my boy’s head as if
to say, “I will do whatever I want and you cannot stop me from way up there,
he’s out of your reach.” I saw
that potential harm-inflicting insect in my rear-view mirror and let out a
gasp.
Of which none of the K’s heard due to the sleeping and
headphones.
For about 2 seconds, I was paralyzed with the fact that the
stinger of that bug was about to harm my children. I luckily snapped out of my 2 second coma and reacted by
pushing the button to roll down the window nearest my baby’s heads.
I got a couple of funny looks, but they weren’t curious
enough to even peel their ears away from the dinosaurs teaching them about
fossils.
I wanted to see it get sucked out the window so that I could
breathe easy and know that they were safe, but taking my eyes off the road for
that long wasn’t an option. I left
the window open for a few minutes and hadn’t seen any signs of the harmful
insect anywhere. I rolled it up
and said a silly but heartfelt prayer of, “protect my kids from harm.”
I paused a minute and thought, how many harmful things are
lurking around them and by the power of a simple heartfelt prayer a
supernatural battle is waged, unseen but real.
I read “This Present Darkness” probably a decade ago and I
don’t think about the wars going on in the spiritual realm very often…I’m kind
of one with simple faith living in 2D most of the time.
But I was reminded about the power of prayer on a 2-lane
highway driving through the wheat fields this weekend.
Handsome K’s mom gave him a canvas for Father’s Day right
after our 2nd was born.
It is a picture of a father praying beside the bed of his sleeping
child, and in the faint background sky out of the window of the child’s room
you can see a battle. I remember
going to a local bookstore when I was younger and looking at this exact
painting. I wondered what battles
are being fought on my behalf simply because of people’s prayers. I wanted to be that kind of parent that
prays fervently for my family.
God says in James 5:16 that “The prayer of a righteous man
is powerful and effective.”
What battles are being won on my kid’s behalf because of my
prayers for them.
Cry out to the Lord on behalf of the little people in my
life.
Cry out often.
When those yellow jackets appear lurking behind my kids I
hope that my first instinct is always found where I have the most defense…on my
knees.
