Prayer for our Youth:

Dear Lord, 

I want to pray over our youth.  I know that there are some issues that our youth are facing at this moment.  There are many youth advocates, teachers, and parents that are very tired of the kids.  They have a lot of different behaviors that are challenging the ones closest to them.  As much as I love being a teacher and working in a youth nonprofit, I also will say that there are many times when I am very exhausted from the youth that I am often interacting with.  They say things and do things that push my patience until I am exhausted at the end of the day.  

Lord, please help the young ones who COVID very much impacted.  Because of the lockdown, they have more mental health issues.  There is an increasing amount of depression and anxiety.  There is also an increasing amount of kids who are suicidal or who have wanted to hurt themselves.  As a teacher, I hear more and more about students who need to go to a counselor on a more regular basis.  I believe in going to therapy, but the incessant need for these kids to have to talk to someone and cry makes my heart hurt.  It is often impacting their studies and their friendships.  

Lord, I want you to protect their minds.  There are many things that seem to attack their young thoughts and feelings.  While I love my phone and I believe that phones have a lot of benefits, I also believe they have caused destruction and attacked young minds.  I believe they see destructive behaviors and attitudes on social media and on videos.  I have seen so many kids make so many bad decisions when it comes to their cell phones and there have been many times, they have put themselves in severe danger.  I pray that the cell phone and social media will have a lessening hold on the youth, and I pray that I can be a good mentor for how one should best use their cell phone in a healthy way.  

Lord, please help all children not have to stress about the major things in the world.  They should not have to spend a lot of their time thinking about whether or not, there will ever be a school shooter or another shutdown, or the coming of another war.  These are not the items that young people should be spending their time thinking about.  They should be more focused on laughing, joking, and making memories.  I often feel that my students are worried about adult things or things that shouldn’t be relevant-relationships, wars, and social media.  Sometimes when I hear the conversations my students are having, it makes me sad because they are trying to sound as though they are already adults as opposed to kids.   

Please help me to be the best youth advocate that I can possibly be.  Please help me as I am teaching and please help me as I am working on the summer team at the Bridge of Storm Lake.   I want to be a light and a good mentor to all the young people I encounter on a regular basis.  I know that I can struggle with patience when there are disrespectful or bad behaviors that pop up, but I also need to remember that there are some times that these young students and kids struggle to control these behaviors.  I want to be able to teach them good behavior and healthy attitudes without getting angry and potentially ruining many relationships.  

I also want to pray over the other mentors and the other advisors, and teachers that are interacting with kids.  I believe that it is important that these adults are also good mentors and good role models for these children.  I know that there are many parents, teachers, and adults that have sadly hurt children, and I am praying that will happen less, and less until it is not around.  I pray that any adult that interacts regularly with children will be an example of your guiding light.  

In Jesus’ name 

Amen