A mother's prayers

A Mother's Prayers

She continued praying before the Lord . . . . Her lips moved, but her voice was not heard.1 Samuel 1:12-13

Recommended Reading1 Samuel 1:8-18

Someone once said, "It's not easy being a mother. If it were easy, fathers would do it!"

That's especially true for mothers torn between work and home. Former Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir put it this way: "At work, you think of the children you have left at home. At home, you think of the work you've left unfinished. Such a struggle is unleashed within yourself. Your heart is rent."

But Christian mothers have a secret weapon—prayer; and the "patron saint" of praying mothers is the biblical hero named Hannah. In half of all the verses about her in 1 Samuel, she is praying; and her prayers produced one of the greatest heroes of the Bible, her son Samuel.

You can pray for your children when you're at work. You can pray for them when they're at school. Your prayers can pursue them to college, to Iraq or Afghanistan, or to the far corners of the world. Your prayers can mold, shape, protect, recover, and enrich them. And in praying, you can trust the Lord with their welfare and remain hopeful for their success.

In an age of "Hannah Montana," it's time to rediscover the original Hannah and to emulate her example.

Praying Samuels come from praying Hannahs. . . . Praying leaders come from praying homes.E. M. Bounds