Hatching Egg Prayers

Many, many years ago as a new mom with my first child, I attended a Bible study and was encouraged by the teacher to write out specific prayer requests for my child’s future and place them in my Bible for safekeeping. The Bible teacher encouraged us new moms to cut out the requests in the shape of an egg because these were prayers that would likely take a long time to “hatch,” which is why she called these special prayers “egg prayers.”

With the birth of each of my three children, I wrote out my “egg prayers” for them. I prayed they’d develop great character and that they’d each walk in integrity and possess a particularly strong sense of right and wrong. I prayed they’d serve Christ their whole lives; I prayed they would be kindhearted and hard-working. I prayed that throughout their lives, God would use all of their life experiences to mold my son and two daughters into the kind of people they would need to be in order to become a Godly husband and Godly wives someday.

Not only have I prayed my egg prayers for each of my children for the last 35, 28 and 26 years, but I’ve prayed the exact same prayers for the people who would one day become their mates.

Tomorrow I will get to witness the fulfillment of one of those “egg prayers.” Tomorrow my youngest child – my daughter, Kelsey, will be married.

Last year when my daughter’s soon-to-be husband asked us for her hand in marriage I was instantly pleased that he respected my husband and me enough to take the old-fashioned approach of asking our permission. As a mother, though, I had to ask him the tough questions. The first of which was, “Why do you want to marry my daughter? What is it about her that makes you think that she’s the one for you?”

His answer was simple, “I love how much she loves Jesus.” He confessed that he’d dated a few girls in the past but never dated one who was serious about serving Christ.

It was the perfect answer, and upon hearing it, I thought, “Here you are at last! I KNOW you! You’re the young man I’ve been praying for these last 26 years!”

This blessed union isn’t merely a fluke, mind you, as my son will be marrying next spring. The bride-to-be is an answer to very specific prayer as well … “egg prayers,” that is.

If you’re not yet praying “egg prayers” for your children, it’s never too late to begin. When we serve Christ faithfully and trust Him with our whole hearts, He is faithful to answer us – even if those answers sometimes take almost 26 years to hatch!

There are never any guarantees that our children’s lives will turn out perfectly – even with regular prayers. However, if we pray faithfully and entrust our children to God, we might actually see those prayers hatch to fruition one day. … And the man or woman of their dreams — might actually turn out to be the man or woman that a mother’s prayers are made of.

“The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man (or woman) availeth much.” James 5:16

Blessings in Christ,
Kathy K.