Pray For My Child Quotes & Sayings

Hear me Isis as I pray.
See her pain and take it all away.
Let the heaven's light shine bright from above.
And wrap her in your most benevolent love.
Let no evil touch this child.
Protect and hold her all the while.
Save her from the darkness, ills and fevers of all kind.
Heal her wounds by your most sacred design.
There is nothing more earnest I can say.
Except please accept my humble heart as I pray. — Sherrilyn Kenyon

The two families, sundered in the ruin of a friendship, were united again first in new friendship and then in mariage. My grandfather made a peace here that has joined many who would otherwise have been divided. I am the child of his forgiveness. — Wendell Berry

For as long as I am your mother and you are my only child, i will worry and hope and pray for you. Do not ask the impossible. — Jennifer Beckstrand

God doesn't just miraculously and physically intervene in the whole process, so if I just go and drop a bunch of chemicals and herbicides that leach into the groundwater, I can pray all day to keep my child healthy, but if the herbicides gone into the groundwater come up my well, my child's going to drink that water. — Joel Salatin

A newborn child has to cry, for only in this way will his lungs expand. A doctor once told me of a child who could not breathe when it was born. In order to make it breathe the doctor gave it a slight blow. The mother must have thought the doctor cruel. But he was really doing the kindest thing possible. As with newborn children the lungs are contracted, so are our spiritual lungs. But through suffering God strikes us in love. Then our lungs expand and we can breathe and pray. — Sadhu Sundar Singh

It is easy to use the phrase 'God's will for my life' as an excuse for inaction or even disobedience ... My hope is that instead of searching for 'God's will for my life' each of us would learn to seek hard after 'the Spirit's leading in my life today.' May we learn to pray for an open and willing heart, to surrender to the Spirit's leading with that friend, child, spouse, circumstance, or decision in our lives right now. — Francis Chan

I am so weak that I can hardly write, I cannot read my Bible, I cannot even pray, I can only lie still in God's arms like a little child, and trust. — Hudson Taylor

Never forget that you are a [child] of God. He loves you. Live by your standards. Stand up for what you believe in. Sometimes it is not easy, and you may be standing alone for a while. Look for friends with integrity and character, then go to them and express appreciation for their examples. You might even find someone who has been feeling as lonely as you. Pray for guidance and protection from the Lord. He will sustain you. He will become a trusted friend, and you will discover that your example will attract many friends who will take courage from your strength of character. — W. Craig Zwick

As the comedian Emo Phillips once said, "When I was a child, I used to pray to God for a bicycle. But then I realized that God doesn't work in that way - so I stole a bike and prayed for forgiveness! — Daniel C. Dennett

The Talmud, the compilation of discussions of Jewish Law which I have quoted earlier in this book, gives examples of bad prayers, improper prayers, which one should not utter. If a woman is pregnant, neither she nor her husband should pray, "May God grant that this child be a boy" (nor, for that matter, may they pray that it be a girl). The sex of the child is determined at conception, and God cannot be invoked to change it. Again, if a man sees a fire engine racing toward his neighborhood, he should not pray, "Please God, don't let the fire be in my house." Not only is it mean-spirited to pray that someone else's house burn instead of yours, but it is futile. A certain house is already on fire; the most sincere or articulate of prayers will not affect the question of which house it is. — Harold S. Kushner

SADNESSES OF THE COVENANT: Sadness of God's love; Sadness of God's back [sic]; Favourite-child sadness; Sadness of b[ein]g sad in front of one's God; Sadness of the opposite of belief [sic]; What if? Sadness; Sadness of God alone in heaven; Sadness of a God who would need people to pray to Him ... — Jonathan Safran Foer

Instead of negotiating or begging for mercy, [my brother Damascene] challenged them to kill him. "Go ahead," he said. "What are you waiting for? Today is my day to go to God. I can feel Him all around us. He is watching, waiting to take me home. Go ahead
finish your work and send me to paradise. I pity you for killing people like it's some kind of child's game. Murder is no game: If you offend God, you will pay for your fun. The blood of the innocent people you cut down will follow you to your reckoning. But I am praying for you ... I pray that you see the evil you're doing and ask God's forgiveness before it's too late. — Immaculee Ilibagiza

Why is it important that you are with God and God alone on the mountain top? It's important because it's the place in which you can listen to the voice of the One who calls you the beloved. To pray is to listen to the One who calls you 'my beloved daughter,' 'my beloved son,' 'my beloved child.' To pray is to let that voice speak to the center of your being, to your guts, and let that voice resound in your whole being. — Henri Nouwen

When the child is ill, the mother will know how to pray. — Wasif Ali Wasif

My child, I am the Lord Who gives strength in the day of trouble. Come to Me when all is not well with you. Your tardiness in turning to prayer is the greatest obstacle to heavenly consolation, for before you pray earnestly to Me you first seek many comforts and take pleasure in outward things. Thus, all things are of little profit to you until you realize that I am the one Who saves those who trust in Me, and that outside of Me there is no worth-while help, or any useful counsel or lasting remedy. — Thomas A Kempis

When the perceptive child of God stops to weigh the meaning of these words, then notes the connection in which they are found, he or she is driven to say, I must pray, pray, pray. I must put all my energy and heart into prayer. Whatever else I do, I must pray. — R.A. Torrey

I was always spiritual, even as a child. I was taught to pray, show gratitude. We had an attitude of gratitude. Even if life was ugly, bad or sad - we prayed. — Shilpa Shetty

All we can do is pray, Ma, pray.
No, Child, these are the deeds of human beings. Planned by the brains of humans, and by the warped hearts of humans. It is to people we must speak our words. God has never sided with the defeated. — Pramoedya Ananta Toer

I shall pray to God to send charity to this hideous world, and sympathy for the weak, and love for the unhappy and unfortunate. I shall ask Him if is indeed His will that a child should suffer and its soul be damned for a little blemish on the body ... And I shall pray Him, too, that the hearts of the self-righteous may be broken ... — John Wyndham

If every Christian family in the United States would simply commit to pray and ask God if HE wants to use them to bless a child without a family, well, we'd change the world. If we can get the church to think about adoption not in terms of the desires of adults but in terms of the needs of children, I think we'd see on a much grander scale how God sets the lonely in families. — Kelly Rosati

Just to be tender, just to be true, Just to be glad the whole day through, Just to be merciful, just to be mild, Just to be trustful as a child, Just to be gentle and kind and sweet, Just to be helpful with willing feet, Just to be cheery when things go wrong, Just to drive sadness away with song, Whether the hour is dark or bright, Just to be loyal to God and right Just to believe that God knows best, Just in His promise ever to rest, Just to let love be our daily key, That is God's will for you and me. Our Father and our God, You have shown me such great kindness and gentle mercy. Teach me to be gentle and kind too. Help me reach out to the lost in compassion and love to bring them gently to You through the person of Jesus Christ, through whom I pray. — Billy Graham

As a child, when his mother would pray that he would have a hedge of protection or a hedge of angels around him, he would think, "Anyone can jump a hedge. How hard is that? Forget the hedge of angels; I'm praying for a dome of angels. — Jonathan Acuff

My troubles are many They're deep as a well I swear there ain't no Heaven And I pray there ain't no hell But I'll never know by living only my dying will tell. And when I die and when I'm gone There'll be, one child born And a world to carry on, to carry on. — Laura Nyro

Our gift is to be a series of puzzles. In reading our clues and seeking our answers, we hope and pray you will find a future as well. A morrow filled with reasons to live, and a purpose grand enough to bestow upon you the gift of hope. For you deserve it all, my dear Brian. All the hope a tomorrow worth living can bring. Here, then, is the first clue: From the hope tossed skyward on your beloved's happiest day, in a grand palace made to make a child feel grander still, search for the heart, search for the heart, search for the heart of your beloved. Yours ever, Heather. — Davis Bunn

We can take our parenting fears to Christ. In fact, if we don't, we'll take our fears out on our kids. Fear turns some parents into paranoid prison guards who monitor every minute, check the background of every friend. They stifle growth and communicate distrust. A family with no breathing room suffocates a child. On the other hand, fear can also create permissive parents. For fear that their child will feel too confined or fenced in, they lower all boundaries. High on hugs and low on discipline. They don't realize that appropriate discipline is an expression of love. Permissive parents. Paranoid parents. How can we avoid the extremes? We pray. — Max Lucado

When we pray as the Scriptures teach us to pray, we learn that prayer is a relationship of dependence. It is a child communicating with his or her heavenly Father. — Judson Cornwall

The child of God ought to confess his weakness that he does not know how to pray, and petition the Holy Spirit to teach him. — Watchman Nee

For years I'd been awaiting that overriding urge I'd always heard about, the narcotic pining that draws childless women ineluctably to strangers' strollers in parks. I wanted to be drowned by the hormonal imperative, to wake one day and throw my arms around your neck, reach down for you, and pray that while that black flower bloomed behind my eyes you had just left me with child. (With child: There's a lovely warm sound to that expression, an archaic but tender acknowledgement that for nine months you have company wherever you go. Pregnant, by contrast, is heavy and bulging and always sounds to my ear like bad news: "I'm pregnant." I instinctively picture a sixteen-year-old at the dinner table- pale, unwell, with a scoundrel of a boyfriend- forcing herself to blurt out her mother's deepest fear.) (27) — Lionel Shriver

Therefore, is thy brother a sinner? Then cover his sin and pray for him. Dost thou publish his sins, then truly thou art not a child of your merciful Father; for otherwise thou wouldst be also as he, merciful. It is certainly true that we cannot show as great mercy to our neighbor, as God has to us; but it is the true work of the devil that we do the very opposite of mercy, which is a sure sign that there is not a grain of mercy in us. — Martin Luther

The breath, the watchword, the comfort, the strength, the honor of a Christian. If thou be a child of God, thou wilt seek thy Father's face, and live in thy Father's love. Pray that this year thou mayst be holy, humble, zealous, and patient; have closer communion with Christ, and enter oftener into the banqueting-house of His love. Pray that thou mayst be an example and a blessing unto others, and that thou mayst live more to the glory of thy — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Lord God, I confess that my son/daughter is loosed from all bondage - set free by the precious blood of Jesus. No past, present, or future bondage will ever prevail against . The world, sin, deception, satanic enticements, the flesh, even fear of death - none of these things will ever be able to enslave this child who is dedicated to You. I pray that You will always be a deliverer, guardian, and guide to , bringing him/her out of any weakness, darkness, or difficult situation of life. I pray that by Your mighty hand You will lead my child into the promised land of his/her destiny. You are the almighty God! There is nothing too hard for You! So I declare redemption over my offspring, believing it will come to pass. In the name of Jesus, amen (let it be so)! — Mike Shreve

You are the son of the Lord God! She said. That's why you can kill and bring back to life, that's why you can heal a blind man as Joseph saw you do, that's why you can pray for snow and there will be snow, that's why you can dispute with your uncle Cleopas when he forgets you're a boy, that's why you make sparrows from clay and bring them to life. Keep your power inside you. Guard it until your Father in Heaven shows you the time to use it. If he's made you a child, then he's made you a child to grow in wisdom as well as in everything else. — Anne Rice

You must pray for him, my child. It is to such as he that our Blessed Mother comes nearest. — Willa Cather

If I had received good instruction as a child I would be with my family today and at peace with my neighbors. I hope and pray that all you parents in the sound of my voice will train up your children in the way they should go. — Charles Portis

If you have ever belonged to such a community, however, you may have discovered that the trouble starts when darkness falls on your life, which can happen in any number of unsurprising ways: you lose your job, your marriage falls apart, your child acts out in some attention getting way, you pray hard for something that does not happen, you begin to doubt some of the things you have been taught about what the Bible says. The first time you speak of these things in a full solar church, you can usually get a hearing. Continue to speak of them and you may be reminded that God will not let you be tested beyond your strength. All that is required of you is to have faith. If you still do not get the message, sooner or later it will be made explicit for you: the darkness is your own fault, because you do not have enough faith. — Barbara Brown Taylor

Parents should teach their children to pray. The child learns both from what the parents do and what they say. The child who sees a mother or a father pass through the trials of life with fervent prayer to God and then hears a sincere testimony that God answered in kindness will remember what he or she saw and heard. When trials come, that individual will be prepared. — Henry B. Eyring

Give me bitter years of sickness, Suffocation, insomnia, fever, Take my child and my lover, And my mysterious gift of song This I pray at your liturgy After so many tormented days, So that the stormcloud over darkened Russia Might become a cloud of glorious rays. — Anna Akhmatova

To pastors and teachers
Compose catechisms particularly to teach prayer, not by reasoning nor by method, for the simple are incapable thereof; but to teach the prayer of the heart, not of the understanding; the prayer of God's Spirit, not of man's invention.
Alas! By wanting them to pray in elaborate forms ... you create their chief obstacles. The children have been led astray from the best of fathers, by your endeavouring to teach them too refined, too polished a language ...
A father is much better pleased with an address which love and respect in the child throws into disorder, because he knows it proceeds from the heart, than by a formal and barren harangue, though ever so elaborate in the composition. The simple and undisguised emotions of filial love are infinitely more expressive than all language and all reasoning. — Jeanne Marie Bouvier De La Motte Guyon

I can't hear God's voice for my kids, but I can watch and listen and pray and adjust and try not to screw up whatever He has planned for their lives. And although I can't make them listen to God, or even want to, I can plant enough seeds to swing the world in their favor. That said, as I navigate my day surrounded by the parents of gifted children (did you notice there aren't any average kids anymore - only Gifted and Disposable), here's where I get confused: if a person believes in gifts but not in God, then where - as they stand in daily admiration of their child's emergent uniqueness, their heart swelling with pride and joy and, yes, gratitude - where, then, do they send the thank-you note? — Heather Choate Davis

As a child, when I lost things such as my precious pocketknife, I learned that if I prayed hard enough, I could usually find it. I was always able to find the lost cows I was entrusted with. Sometimes I had to pray more than once, but my prayers always seemed to be answered. — James E. Faust

And if you are a mom who has watched your child's father leave, my heart goes out to you. I also pray that you had no part in it. I pray that you didn't make it impossible for him while he was there. I pray that you didn't try and force him to live up to impossible expectations. And, I pray that if he is a good man and he wants to be there in his child's life that you love your child enough to let him. Even if that seems impossible to you. — Dan Pearce

How do I pray? Not in any organized form, really; I go to temples sometimes with my family, but they leave me cold. I think of prayer as something intensely personal, a way of reaching my hands out towards my maker. I recite some mantras my parents taught me as a child; there is something reassuring about those ancient words, hallowed by use and repetition over thousands of years. — Shashi Tharoor

In light of this evidence, Bryan suggests that we should embrace nouns more thoughtfully. "Don't Drink and Drive" could be rephrased as: "Don't Be a Drunk Driver." The same thinking can be applied to originality. When a child draws a picture, instead of calling the artwork creative, we can say "You are creative." After a teenager resists the temptation to follow the crowd, we can commend her for being a non-conformist. When we shift our emphasis from behavior to character, people evaluate choices differently. Instead of asking whether this behavior will achieve the results they want, they take action because it is the right thing to do. In the poignant words of one Holocaust rescuer, "It's like saving somebody who is drowning. You don't ask them what God they pray to. You just go and save them. — Adam M. Grant

This life is difficult. We lose fathers, brothers, mothers, songbirds and pieces of ourselves. Whips strike the innocent, honors go to the guilty, and there is too much loneliness. I would be a fool to pray for my children to escape all of that. Ask for too much and it might actually turn out worse. But I can pray for small things, like fertile fields, a mother's love, a child's smile - a life that's less bitter than sweet. — Nadia Hashimi

For more than 160 years, through the initiative of the French bishop Charles de Forbin Janson, the childhood of Jesus has become the icon for the commitment of Christian children who help the Church in her task of evangelization by prayer, sacrifice and gestures of solidarity ... Thousands of children meet the needs of other children, driven by the love that the Son of God, become a child, brought to the earth. I say thanks to these little ones and I pray that they will always be missionaries. — Pope Benedict XVI

If you want to save your child from polio, you can pray or you can inoculate ... Choose science. — Carl Sagan

Thank You, Lord, that I am a child of Yours, set apart for Your glory, and that You hear my prayers. When I pray, help me to have the peace of knowing You have heard my prayer and will answer in Your way and in Your perfect timing. Show me if there is ever anything in my life that would become a barrier between me and You so that my prayers would go unanswered. — Stormie O'martian

But the most wonderful thing of all, our highest achievement and the one thing for which I pray we will always be remembered, is stuffing wads of polyester into an anatomically incorrect, cartoonish ideal of one of nature's most fearsome predators for no other reason than to soothe a child. — Rick Yancey

You are angry at the God you were taught to believe in as a child. The God who is supposed to watch over you and protect you, who answers your prayers and forgives your sins. This God is just a story. Religions try to capture God, but God is beyond religion. The true God lies beyond our comprehension. We can't understand His will; He can't be explained in a book. He didn't abandon us and He will not save us. He has nothing to do with our being here. God does not change. He simply is. I don't pray to God for forgiveness or favors, I only pray to be closer to Him, and when I pray, I fill my heart with love. When I pray this way, I know that God is love. When I feel that love, I remember that we don't need angels or a heaven, because we are a part of God already. — Nando Parrado

God, show me how to pray in a way that will make a difference in this child's life. — Stormie O'martian

As you pray and serve others, your knowledge that you are a child of God and your feelings about Him will grow. — Henry B. Eyring

I am sure that all people know deep down inside that the little child in the mother's womb is a human being from the moment of conception, created in the image of God to love and be loved. Let us pray that nobody will be afraid to protect that little child, to help that little child to be born. Jesus said: 'If you receive a little child in my name, you receive me.' — Mother Teresa

There is so much deep contradiction in my soul. Such deep longing for God - so deep that it is painful - a suffering continual - and yet not wanted by God - repulsed - empty - no faith - no love - no zeal. Souls hold no attraction - Heaven means nothing - to me it looks like an empty place - the thought of it means nothing to me and yet this torturing longing for God. Pray for me please that I keep smiling at Him in spite of everything. For I am only His - so He has every right over me. I am perfectly happy to be nobody even to God ...
Your devoted child in J.C.
M. Teresa — Brian Kolodiejchuk

I pray that no child of mine would ever descend into such a place as a library. They are indeed most dangerous places and unfortunate is she or he who is lured into such a hellhole of enjoyment, stimulus, facts, passion and fun. — Willy Russell

Sanity:
You can go through your whole life telling yourself that life is logical, life is prosaic, life is sane. Above all, sane. And I think it is. I've had a lot of time to think about that ...
I think; therefore I am. There are hairs on my face; therefore I shave. My wife and child have been critically injured in a car crash; therefore I pray. It's all logical, it's all sane.
... there's a Mr. Hyde for every happy Jekyll face, a dark face on the other side of the mirror ... You turn the mirror sideways and see your face reflected with a sinister left-hand twist, half mad and half sane.
... No one looks at that side unless they have to, and I can understand that.
... I'm the sane one. — Richard Bachman

Close your eyes. You might try saying ... something like this: "The sun is shining overhead. The sky is blue and sparkling. Nature is calm and in control of the world-and I, as nature's child, am in tune with the Universe." Or-better still-pray! — Dale Carnegie

Have we this day grace enough to make trenches into which the divine blessing may flow? Alas! we too often fail in the exhibition of true and practical faith. Let us this day be on the outlook for answers to prayer. As the child who went to a meeting to pray for rain took an umbrella with her, so let us truly and practically expect the Lord to bless us. Let us make the valley full of ditches and expect to see them all filled. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

I always prayed the same way at night: "Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Please bless my mother, father, sister, everyone in the word, and me. And please make my father quit drinking."
As a child growing up in a family battling alcoholism, this is what I know: Something bad is coming; it always does. I can't ask for help; I'm too ashamed. I can't talk about our secrets; no one understands. I can't trust anyone; they always leave.
Questions bounced off my self-constructed wall of values
a barricade I'd made from the fears I'd pushed into my darkness.
How could Ryan, a professional baseball player, really resist all those women? How could I really trust Jerry, my childhood friend? I'd barely awakened to sex and already boys were the seventh wonder of the world. Did anyone really trust another person? I needed proof. That proof hadn't revealed itself ... yet. — Pamela Taeuffer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for preserving Jayden's life," Telford prayed. "Heal him physically and heal him spiritually as well. Jayden's a good child, but his heart is prone to wander. Even though he hasn't yet believed in You, we know that He's Yours. Help us as his friends and family to help him through his confusion and pain. However, we can't save him - only You can do that, and so we pray that You'll open his eyes and heart to Your love. Have him to — Juliette Duncan

Dear Lord, we know that You are a Father and that you love your Son. [...] We know how deep Your love is, that You know if even a hair falls from our head. Lord, we plead with You for this child. Be with the doctors that will take care of him. [...] Keep him in Your care, Lord, we pray. Keep him healthy. Let us enjoy him again. Amen. — Carolyne Aarsen

My child, you have a flawed grasp of the nature of myth-making. I am a poet and storyteller, a creator of ballads and sagas. Pray do not confuse the exercise of the imagination with mere mendacity. I am a master of the mysteries of words, their meanings and music and mellifluous magic. — Frances Hardinge

My heart is hurting so bad no one can make me believe this is real Father God I pray that you send clarity over this cause I just don't understand My heart hurts it's broken no one can convince me that this is real ... Prayer warriors please pray real hard for his only child, his daughter and family, — Tyrese Gibson

Pray for someone else's child, your pastor, the military, the police officers, the firemen, the teachers, the government. There's no end to the ways that you can intervene on behalf of others through prayer. — Monica Johnson

Divine justice pursued its course; disasters came thick on me: I was forced to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. His chastisements are mighty; and one smote me which has humbled me for ever. You know I was proud of my strength: but what is it now, when I must give it over to foreign guidance, as a child does its weakness? Of late, Jane - only - only of late - I began to see and acknowledge the hand of God in my doom. I began to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement to my Maker. I began to pray: very brief prayers they were, but very sincere. — Charlotte Bronte

You are blessed! God's desire is for you. And Jesus is the incarnation of God's furious longing. He is your supreme Lover. It's true. You are blessed. Your soul's winter is over. The snows are over and gone. Flowers are blooming inside of you. The season of joyful songs has come. To you. You are blessed! The love of God is folly. No one is excluded. All (really!) are called to the banquet table. Come, and be filled. You are blessed! Be-YOU-ti-full. Be you. Just be. Love supports you. You are blessed! You have learned the purpose of life: LOVE. You are blessed! You can pray like a child, and enjoy God. You are blessed! Heal, and be healed. Reclaim affirmations for the kingdom of God. Amen. Amen. Amen. — Brennan Manning

A prayerless soul is a Christless soul. Prayer is the lisping of the believing infant, the shout of the fighting believer, the requiem of the dying saint falling asleep in Jesus. It is the breath, the watchword, the comfort, the strength, the honour of a Christian. If thou be a child of God, thou wilt seek thy Father's face, and live in thy Father's love. Pray that this year thou mayst be holy, humble, zealous, and patient; have closer communion with Christ, — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Why pray for the Kingdom of God to come unless you have in your heart a desire and a willingness to aid in its establishment? Praying for His will to be done and then not trying to live it, gives you a negative answer at once. You would not grant something to a child who showed that attitude towards a request he is making of you. If we pray for the success of some cause or enterprise, manifestly we are in sympathy with it. It is the height of disloyalty to pray for God's will to be done, and then fail to conform our lives to that will. — David O. McKay

When parents say, 'I wish my child did not have autism,' what they're really saying is, 'I wish the autistic child I have did not exist, and I had a different (non-autistic) child instead.' Read that again. This is what we hear when you mourn over our existence. This is what we hear when you pray for a cure. This is what we know, when you tell us of your fondest hopes and dreams for us: that your greatest wish is that one day we will cease to be, and strangers you can love will move in behind our faces. — Andrew Solomon

I wish to you sunshine, my dear one, my dear one. And treetops for you to soar past. I wish to you innocence, my child, my child. I pray you don't grow up too fast. Never know pain, my dear one, my dear one. Nor hunger nor fear nor sorrow. Never know war, my child, my child. Remember your hope for tomorrow. — Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

The fortunate, she thought, and she counted herself fortunate, should not insulate themselves in their good fortune. If they could do nothing else they could pray, and she prayed as she was able, grieving over the childishness of her prayer but trying to make it real to herself by letting the travail of her mind bring forth one concrete fact at a time to pray about; one child in danger, some particular man in darkness, some particular prisoner facing the world again with fear and shame; God knew who they were even if she did not. — Elizabeth Goudge

Once Momma left, Evelyn stared back out at the sky, where the sparkle of the first star emerged. As a child, she'd always thought the best wishing star was the first one to appear, but girlhood wishes had gotten her into a lot of trouble. Better to pray God would do as He pleased than make any wishes. — Melissa Jagears

Either the gods have power or they don't. If they don't,
why pray? If they do, then why not pray for something else
instead of for things to happen or not to happen? Pray not to
feel fear. Or desire, or grief. If the gods can do anything, they
can surely do that for us. - But those are things the gods left up to me.
Then isn't it better to do what's up to you - like a free man
- than to be passively controlled by what isn't, like a slave
or beggar? And what makes you think the gods don't care
about what's up to us?
Start praying like this and you'll see.
Not "some way to sleep with her" - but a way to stop
wanting to.
Not "some way to get rid of him" - but a way to stop
trying.
Not "some way to save my child" - but a way to lose your
fear.
Redirect your prayers like that, and watch what happens. — Marcus Aurelius

Hitoshi:
I'll never be able to be here again. As the minutes slide by, I move on. The flow of time is something I cannot stop. I haven't a choice. I go.
One caravan has stopped, another starts up. There are people I've yet to meet, others I'll never see again. People who are gone before you know it, people who are just passing through. Even as we exchange hellos, they seem to grow transparent. I must keep living with the flowing river before my eyes.
I earnestly pray that a trace of my girl-child self will always be with you.
For waving good-bye, I thank you. — Banana Yoshimoto

We know that to become a Christian we shouldn't try to fix ourselves up, but when it comes to praying we completely forget that. We'll sing the old gospel hymn, "Just as I Am," but when it comes to praying, we don't come just as we are. We try, like adults, to fix ourselves up. Private, personal prayer is one of the last great bastions of legalism. In order to pray like a child, you might need to unlearn the nonpersonal, nonreal praying that you've been taught. — Paul Miller

I am talking about something more than just the gauzy circle of life. Sure, you're older now and one day you're going to die, but before that, you have to *die*. Your child has arrived and the battle has been joined. It is the battle to the death of your ego. The demise of your selfishness and impatience. The end of your idle distractions and carelessness. The decline and fall of Numero Uno. Or so you must pray, because in this contest, you must lose or lose quickly. Pray that you will never bear the shattered consequences of winning when your child's safety, trust, and happiness are the casualties. — Karen Maezen Miller

The child is taught form earliest consciousness that she has these four brothers with her in the world wherever she goes, and that they will always look after her. The brothers inhabit the four virtues a person needs in order to be safe and happy in life: intelligence, friendship, strength and poetry. The brothers can be called upon in any critical situation for rescue and assistance. When you die, your four spirit brothers collet your soul and bring you to heaven. — Elizabeth Gilbert