The Prayers of a Godly Mother

I have attended many weddings in my life, but the most moving was for the daughter of a particularly good friend. The wedding was so Spirit-filled that it brought me to tears. The bride and groom were very much in love and totally committed to God in all areas of their lives. I marveled to my friend that this was their third daughter who married a committed Christian. “We always prayed that our daughters would marry godly men,” she said.

Her simple response reminded me of another example of a godly mother, Catherine Marshall. Catherine was widowed in her thirties when her husband, Peter Marshall, died suddenly of a heart attack. He was a beloved Presbyterian minister and Chaplain of the United States Senate.

Catherine was left alone to raise her small son, Peter John. Through her devastating loss, God led her down a new path and she became one of the most beloved Christian writers of our time. I caught a glimpse of her spiritual life as a godly mother through one of her books, Adventures in Prayer. (Chosen Books © 1996)

One day Catherine was flipping through a beloved, dog-eared old Bible that she had not used for a while. She came across a series of little egg-shaped slips of paper. She smiled as she remembered what they were all about. She wrote: "When my son was small and I was in a typical motherly mood of worrying about him, I came across a seemingly almost childlike piece of ‘how to’ writing by Dr. Glenn Clark. Part of the problem in praying for our children, he suggested, is the time lag, the necessary slow maturation of our prayers, almost like the hen patiently sitting on her eggs to incubate them."

Dr. Clark suggested that parents spend time thinking through their hearts’ deepest desires for their children and then pray for Jesus’ mind on them, sifting out everything superficial or selfish until reaching the kernel of the Spirit’s hopes and dreams for that child. Then copy those hopes in the form of prayers onto slips of paper cut into the shape of eggs. Then give these petitions to the Father to fulfill in His own time and His own way. The last step was to insert the slips of paper between the pages of a favorite Bible, a visual reminder to leave them in God’s keeping.

Catherine said, “I did not mention to anyone what I had done for fear of seeming naïve. Yet, today I think just the opposite. I feel that those little paper eggs represent a very profound principle indeed. For when I came across them in my Bible years later, I found to my astonishment that a loving Father had fulfilled every single request.”

Catherine went through this process in praying for the proper mate for her son. Through prayer, she actually listed the qualities this “dream girl” would have. The most important, of course, was that she would have met Jesus Christ for herself and fallen in love with Him.

One morning when the portrait seemed complete, she stuck the list between the pages of the same favorite Bible.

She wrote: “In the years that followed, it was difficult to watch the procession of girls who passed through Peter John’s life. The waiting time came to an end when he met Edith. After they were engaged, I came across those written notes and reread them with amazement.

There—detail by detail—was Edith. I loved her immediately and have never stopped thanking God for such a marvelous answer to prayer.”

What a precious gift we have as mothers to lift up our children in prayer! Let us follow Catherine Marshall’s example of praying for godly mates for our children. Heed the Word of God, which says, “Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord.  Lift up your hands to Him for the lives of your children.” (Lam. 2:19 NIV)