A mother's prayer...

Dear God,

Please take care of my children.

I pray for a lot of things, but if you ever have to choose, always choose them. Please keep them safe and healthy and happy.

Give them faith that everything will turn out OK in the end, then help to make sure that everything ends up being OK. Give them courage and trust and hope. Give them the ability to laugh, to cry, and to feel.

Surround them always with people who really love them. Put people in their lives who have their best interests at heart. When their feelings are hurt, when their hearts ache because someone let them down, when their eyes swell up with tears; help them to learn from the experience, see that it wasn’t all for nothing and help them move forward. Allow them to know people who will support them in these tougher times of life.

And for the people who hurt my babies, God, please keep them far away from me.

Please be the voice inside my children’s heads when they don’t know which choice to make. Help them to always choose to be nice and be good.

Help them to chase their dreams and eventually know that dreams do come true. Help them to stand when they fall. Help them to never give up. Help them to never take take one single breath for granted.

God, please help us to be the parents our children need and deserve. To greet them with smiles and open arms, and to lose count of the number of kisses shared throughout the day. Help us to really pay attention when their little voices speak to us. Those voices are so very special. And they carry the thoughts of the pieces of my heart. Help me to always listen. Really, really listen. Help me to be patient and understanding when I don't always understand.

Be with Chris and me as we remember that we created these people with pure love in our hearts. And when we did that, we made them a promise. We promised them a forever family. Help us to remember each other as we carry this family forward.

And, please... If I can be selfish, please give me another day with my family. I will ask this of you every night for as long as I live.

We are a family, the four of us (for now). We are a team. We fit together. And we need that fit. We need the other six shoulders to lean on, the other three smiles, and the other hands to tightly hold.

I praise you this night for giving me such opportunity to love and pray that I continue to know this love until my very last day.

Amen.

Partially borrowed from another mommy; someone far more eloquent than I.