One of our own community Mommy members, Sasha, inboxed me about something she came across on social media. There is a post going around where parents are saying: "Teach your kids to behave because I am teaching mine witchcraft." Insinuating that they will put a curse on other people's children. I am not going to spend a lot of time on the trend itself because I do not give the enemy that much of my energy. But I AM going to respond to it. Because if there are parents out there openly declaring that they are equipping their children in darkness we have a responsibility to make sure our children are equipped in the light. And not just equipped. Confident in their authority as children of God. We teach our children TO pray. But a lot of us are still doing the heavy lifting FOR them. And there is going to come a moment when we are not in the room. When our child is at school, at a friend's house, in a situation we did not see coming and they need to know how to stand on their own. They need to know that the authority of God does not live in mom's prayer. It lives in THEM because He lives in them. So today I want to give you four prayers to pray WITH your children. Not just over them. With them. So they learn the words. So they learn the posture. So they learn that they have just as much right to talk to God and stand in His authority as any adult in the room. Print these. Post them. Pray them together tonight. PRAYER 1: THE MORNING SHIELD Pray this every morning before school or the start of the day Father God thank You for this day. I ask You to put a hedge of protection around me today. No weapon formed against me shall prosper. No curse, no evil, no assignment of the enemy has power over my life because I belong to You. I am covered by the blood of Jesus. My mind is protected. My body is protected. My spirit is protected. Holy Spirit go before me today and let every place I go feel Your presence. I walk out of this house covered, armed, and confident in who I am. In Jesus name. Amen.

And I know that might sound regular to some of you. People cry in church all the time. But it is not regular for me. I am a gangster. 😂 Crying is genuinely not something my body does easily. I do not jump around. I do not shout. I do not take off running down the aisle. You will normally find me in middle with a notebook writing down everything I want to study later. That is just who I am. But yesterday I cried. And I did not pay attention to who was around me. I did not think about how I looked. I did not manage it or control it or wait until I got to the car. I just cried. And in that crying I finally stopped performing. I cried because I am exhausted. I cried because I have been everything for everyone for so long that I forgot what it feels like to just be Ashley. I cried because I thought I was doing right by homeschooling my children and some days it is driving me absolutely bananas. I cried because I have always been a good steward of money and I still had to move three times in one year just to protect my family. I cried because this is not exactly the vision I had for my life at this point. I cried because I am a good person who does great things and I still have unaddressed trauma sitting in places I have not been brave enough to look at yet. I cried because I am tired of being in control. And for the first time in a long time it felt so good to not be. So I need to tell you something today. I am an amazing kids Bible teacher. I am the one God gave a word for parents. I show up here consistently with tools and truth and fire and I mean every single word of it. And I still struggle. I still fall short. I still have hard days and hard seasons and things I have not figured out yet. And that is okay. As of yesterday I am officially assigned to a counselor at my church. And I am sharing that out loud on purpose. Because as long as I stay silent the enemy wins. And I refuse to let him win. So today I am speaking up. Against quiet depression that nobody talks about because it does not look dramatic enough to be real.

There was a season in my life where I did not look like everybody else. While other people were living it up, going out, fitting in, doing what everyone around them was doing I was planting. And I did not always understand it. Because planting is not glamorous. Planting is quiet. Planting is early mornings and late nights and sacrifice that nobody sees and choices that do not make sense to the people watching you. Planting looks like you are missing out. Planting looks like you are behind. Planting looks like everybody else is living and you are stuck in a field doing something that has not produced anything yet. And I remember begging God to let me be like everybody else. Little did I know. Because there comes a moment and it always comes when the season shifts. And the people who were living it up start scrambling for seeds. And the people who were planting quietly in their weird season? They are in harvest. They are resting safely in what they built while everyone else is just now getting serious. That is the story of my life. And I believe it is the story God is writing for some of you right now. Your season does not look like everybody else's. You are planting when the world says this is not the time to plant. You are sacrificing when the world says you deserve to enjoy yourself. You are building something that has not produced visible fruit yet and the enemy keeps whispering...see? Nothing is happening. You are wasting your time. Do not stop planting. Because the harvest is coming. And when it does you will not have to scramble. You will already be standing in it. Now let me talk to you as a parent. Because this is not just about your life. It is about what you are planting in your children RIGHT NOW. Proverbs 22:6 says train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it. But here is what I want you to notice. When he is OLD. Not when he is ten. Not when he is still under your roof. Not when it is convenient or when you can see the fruit immediately.

I need to share something personal with you today. My mother passed away when I was eight years old. And when I sit down and try to remember what she taught me what she actually poured into me that I carried with me I come up with three things. Three. She taught me how to properly wash my body. She told me not to have sex until I was twenty five. And she taught me that when I had a bad dream I could wake up and pray and God would let me go back to sleep. That is it. Not because she was a bad mother. But because she ran out of time before she could give me more. And I have spent a significant portion of my life wishing she had more time. Wishing there were more lessons. More conversations. More of her voice in my head when I needed it most. She did not know she was running out of time. None of us do. So I want to ask you something today and I need you to sit with it. If today was your last day Did you do a good job? Not a perfect job. Not a Pinterest job. Not a "my kids are well behaved in public" job. A real job. Did your child know today that they were loved by you specifically? Did they know what you believe about God? Did they know what you expect from them and why? Did they know what to do when they have a bad dream? When they feel afraid? When the world feels too heavy and they need somewhere to go? Did you have the conversation you have been putting off because they are too young? Did you discipline the behavior you have been ignoring because you thought you had more time? Did you tell them the thing you have been meaning to say? We put off the important things because we believe in the illusion of later. Later I will talk to them about that. Later I will address that behavior. Later I will have the hard conversation. Later I will tell them I love them in that specific way they need to hear it. Later I will pray with them. Later I will teach them. But my mother did not have a later. And neither might you. And neither might I. I am not saying this to put fear in you.

Father, Today we repent. Not just for what we’ve done but for what we failed to do. You called us to lead our children. To train them. To guide them in the way they should go. And Lord, forgive us for the times we withheld the correction they needed because we were tired, overwhelmed, passive, distracted, or afraid of upsetting them. Forgive us for calling it “gentle parenting” when sometimes it was avoidance.Forgive us for allowing attitudes, disrespect, lying, manipulation, laziness, entitlement, and disobedience to grow unchecked. Because every time we ignored what should have been corrected…we robbed our children of the training You assigned us to give them. Forgive us for shrinking back from leadership. Forgive us for wanting peace more than order.Forgive us for choosing convenience over consistency.Forgive us for disciplining emotionally one day and ignoring behavior the next. You never called us to just keep our children comfortable. You called us to prepare them. So today, strengthen us as parents. Give us wisdom to correct with love and firmness.Teach us how to discipline without anger but also without passivity. Remove guilt that keeps us from enforcing boundaries.Remove fear that keeps us from saying no.Remove laziness in us where we have stopped training our children intentionally. Father, help us understand that correction is not rejection. Discipline is discipleship. And we do not want to fail our assignment by refusing to lead. Teach us how to coach our children toward maturity, responsibility, honor, and self-control. Let our homes not be led by emotion, chaos, or entitlement. Restore order.Restore structure.Restore intentional parenting. And where we’ve gotten it wrong give us grace to reset. We will not parent perfectly.But we will parent intentionally. Because our children deserve guidance, not neglect disguised as freedom. And we declare that from this day forward, we will lead our children with wisdom, consistency, truth, and love. In Jesus’ name,Amen.