A Prayer for a Child Grieving a Death
Last week, I received my order of Kathleen Nielson’s new four-volume set of Prayers of a Parents books and, O, how I love them already! The following is from the first volume, Prayers of a Parent for Young Children.
Lord, I would want to keep my child from seeing how death keeps reaching in to steal this life, and that one—not just old, but young, and not just sick and dying, but alive and in the midst of carrying on and suddenly snuffed out.
I pray that you would help me show how we are called to live right now in company with death, which tells us of our sin—but tells us of our sin—but tells us even more of Jesus, your own Son who came and died and conquered sin and death upon that cross, who rose in triumph from the grave.
So, Lord, please help me teach my child to grieve, to sorrow, to lament the awfulness of death, but not to grieve as others do, who have no hope. How grief and hope share space in human hearts we learn by faith along the way. Help me both learn and teach, I pray, as my child sees and grieves a death.
Kathleen Nielson, Prayers of a Parent for Young Children