A Mother's Prayer Upon Kindergarten

The big yellow bus came yesterday.

Little girl was ready long before it lumbered down our steep hill.  She’s been ready for some time now.  All summer, as we’ve talked and dreamed and speculated about kindergarten, her guidepost was that bus and how the next time it came, it would be coming for her.

Come it did--at 7:00 am. It swallowed her up and she was off.  All we could see of her as she pulled away was the very top of her little blonde head popping up in the window.

All day long, I felt like I was in some secret club.  When I would mention that my little girl headed off to kindergarten that morning people immediately asked how I was doing and braced themselves for—something. Tears? An emotional breakdown? I don’t know.  It was funny after a while, and certainly I understand how this could put a parent over the edge. It’s a big deal.  But I knew she was fine.  Knew it in the way mothers know. And she was. And so I was, too.

As I think about what the next twelve (plus) years hold for her, about what ups and downs we will ride out, about the things she will accomplish and learn, about the failures and heartbreaks that will disappoint her….my biggest hope is simply that she can find joy and purpose in the midst of it all.   And my prayers.  

Oh, there are so many prayers.

I pray that something will captivate her imagination.  That art or music or sports or writing or computers or…something….grabs hold of her, makes her pay attention, and gives her a glimpse of the big, wonderful world out there and her role in it. I pray that she will not let someone else tell her what should captivate her, but that she will be brave and figure it out for herself.

I pray that she finds friends who will help her be the best version of herself.  Friends who will wear those stupid beanies with her when she is in brownies. Friends who will help her stay up late at sleepovers so that her underwear doesn’t end up frozen next to someone’s lasagna. Friends who will help her with her algebra homework in middle school and help her ward off the Mean Girls in high school. Friends she will cling to and cry with the day before they go their separate ways at the end of it all. 

   

I pray that she would have ears to hear and eyes to see that there is a God in our midst who is the orchestrator of all of this, and that He loves her, and that that is such a big deal. That it changes everything about you, if you really believe it. And I pray that she would be someone who would let it change her. Pray that she would be open, really and truly open, to Him and that she would let his goodness and mercy soak through every cell in her body.

And, for the love of Moses, I pray that she will not develop a potty mouth from all of those mornings and afternoons on the bus.

 

Lord, hear my prayers.