Praying for a new school year

As we start prepping for a new school year, you likely have all the things you need to get the correct school supplies and appropriate outfits. You may have gotten a call from your kid’s teacher and are feeling pretty prepared!

We got school supplies early this year and there’s nothing better than not having to rush ship the exact construction paper listed. Another annual part of getting ready for school that we don’t usually talk about?

WORRY

Will my child make friends?
Will their teacher connect with them?
Are they physically safe?
Who will influence them?

Ok I’ll stop before I stress anyone out more.

I don’t know how you felt reading all that but it can be overwhelming. Aren’t we all facing some fears as our kids go to school?

Since we can’t secure our kids in a clear bubble far from every challenge, our response has to be prayer. If not, it’s gonna be a very long year.

So today, instead of just telling you the obvious, that it’d be a good idea to pray, I’m sharing some ideas for what to pray for as you either physically or mentally walk through your kid’s school.

At my girl’s school, we are allowed to do prayer walks. It started out as a quarterly thing a few years ago and some excited mommas took it to the next level and now we meet once a week! We say a quick prayer together, then walk around campus for 20-25 minutes and then circle up again for someone to close. It is one of the most life-giving parts of my week and I love covering their school and my girl’s school life in prayer consistently!

Depending on what’s possible at your school, you’ve got a few ways to incorporate this PDF:

• You can pray on campus. Shoot for this if you can! Ask the administration. The worst they can say is no.
• Meet at an offsite location with other moms.
• Ask a mom friend to walk around your neighborhood or track and pray together.
• You could also use these as part of your quiet time.

If you’ve used our House Prayers before, we modeled the same format hitting on different locations through school to trigger different prayers. I asked a few friends in different school experiences, older kids, younger kids, public, private, their thoughts too and it was gold! In case there’s things we didn’t include that you want to add, we’ve included extra lines to add your own ideas!

Take a few minutes to think about what has you worried most about school and if it’s not listed already, add it immediately!

And if I can say from experience, don’t wait. Don’t save this post for later. Go download the PDF. It’s free. Print it out. Or if you’re a millennial like me and the thought of printing stresses you out, save screenshots of the PDF and put it in an album on your phone to reference whenever you want to pray.

Imagine committing to praying through this once a week or even once a month! What a way to love on our kids while they are at school! And what a sweet thing to turn every worry we have as moms about school into prayer.