A Prayer for Protection Over My Children

Father, they are asleep down the hall, small chests rising and falling, and I am standing in the dark loving them so fiercely it frightens me. There is so much out there I cannot guard them from, and tonight that truth sits heavy on my chest.

I confess I have tried to be their whole shield. I check the locks twice, read the news and imagine the worst, and lie awake bargaining with every danger I cannot name. My love has curdled into fear more often than I want to admit.

So I lift each of them to You by name. The schoolyard I cannot watch, the friends I have not met, the roads they will one day drive without me. Cover them where my arms cannot reach.

You said You gather Your little ones close, the way a hen shelters her chicks under her wings, and I trust them to that wider, stronger covering tonight.

Make me a calm and faithful parent, not a frantic one. Let me raise them with open hands, knowing they were always Yours before they were ever mine. Amen.