Prayer from a Tired Mom

Praying:… just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence into which another voice may speak.  --Mary Oliver, 1935 –

It's been a long evening.  And I'm tired of being a parent.  Or I guess I'm tired of being a parent that gives a damn.  But, of course, I give a really big damn. 

I've been trying to figure out what the basic role of a parent is and I've tried to narrow it to this:
1. Try to keep them out of physical harm's way.
2. Try to set them up for a promising future and keep as many options for their future open to them.
3. Try to show and teach them how to be a good person. 

I've thought that this is my role until they are 18, but I'm starting to wonder if this is always going to be my role and that 18 is way too early.

So, here is my meager prayer for my children...and for me.



Holding the sun in their hands

To the powers that be, help me to know how to parent my children.  Not just overall, but how to parent them differently from one situation to the next, from one minute to the next and from one crisis to the next.  Help me to remember what it was like to be their age and to do it from a place of compassion.  Help me to trust my emotions but also remember every single thing I've ever read, heard or thought. 

To those who watch over us, help us remember that this isn't forever.  That these are small steps and that a misstep here or there won't put us on the wrong path forever.  Help to keep perspective that we all screw up--as kids and as parents--and that everything usually turns out okay in the end.

To all the deities that watch out over children, help mine know that their father and I are doing the very best we can with the limited skills that we had and the role models that we were given.  Help them to understand that no matter what punishments, consequences or emotions come that day that I love them more than anything else in my life.  Encourage them to reach out from beyond that veil of teenage angst to the love and support that is right here around them.  And please tell me that one day this will all make sense to them. 

To all the Gods that are worshiped and whose energy encompass us all, surround my family--as broken as we are--and help guide us with love.  When you're looking to dole out little extra bits of energy, send us a little more than usual right now--we won't need it forever and we'll give more than our share back when we're through all this, we promise. 

Amen, Blessed Be.