For My Boys

I've been praying a lot for my boys.  I've always prayed for them and with them but I have found that lately I've praying for them more.  More frequently and with more fervor.  I pray for Gabe as I drop him off at school, I pray for Eli as I leave him in the morning.  I find myself thinking about them often during the day and I just say a prayer for them.
My prayers are super eloquent.
Here are a few examples:

"Dear God (pause) Gabe.  Amen"

Sometimes I don't even know what to say, I just offer up that child to Him and trust that God knows my heart.  Other times, I get a little more detailed with my requests:

"Dear God...protect Eli. Protect his mind, his body, and his innocence...stop by Safeway and grab some eggs and gas up before my reward points expire...oh wait....and God bring a good friend into his life, give him joy, 
and let him know he is loved"

OK so maybe not so noteworthy but that's what I've got at the time.

A few years ago I found this prayer by Gen. Douglas MacArthur. His words are simply beautiful.  In a much more eloquent and focused way, he expresses what I desire for my boys. I'm going to start praying these words over my boys.

General Douglas MacArthur

"Build me a son, O Lord, who will be strong enough to know when he is weak, and brave enough to face himself when he is afraid; one who will be proud and unbending in honest defeat, and humble and gentle in victory.
Build me a son whose wishbone will not be where his backbone should be; a son who will know Thee….Lead him, I pray, not in the path of ease and comfort, but under the stress and spur of difficulties and challenge. Here let him learn to stand up in the storm; here let him learn compassion for those who fail.
Build me a son whose heart will be clean, whose goal will be high; a son who will master himself before he seeks to master other men; one who will learn to laugh, yet never forget how to weep; one who will reach into the future, yet never forget the past.
And after all these things are his, add, I pray, enough of a sense of humor, so that he may always be serious, yet never take himself too seriously. Give him humility, so that he may always remember the simplicity of greatness, the open mind of true wisdom, the meekness of true strength.
Then I, his father, will dare to whisper, “I have not lived in vain.”

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