Praying for Girls - Review

I've fallen behind on my reading. This is in large part due to the fact that I started keeping all three girls at home on my days off. I'm not going to stress about it though, because I want reading, even nonfiction, to be enjoyable. When it becomes something I "have to" do then I get less out of it. My July/August nonfiction book was Praying for Girls by Teri Lynne Underwood.

This book was so incredibly practical. Raising kids is so wonderfully hard, and each gender comes with its own set of challenges. Since we have three girls, having applicable scripture-based prayers to say over my daughters is invaluable to me. Praying for Girls works through five main areas of a girl's life: her identity, her heart, her mind, her relationships, and her purpose. Each part is broken up into different aspects of the main areas with Biblical truths, Scripture-based prayers (for both daughters and mothers), and creative ways to talk to daughters about those truths. Combined they form effective tools to help us, as parents, guide our daughters into becoming godly women.

I already prayed for my kids every day, but having very specific prayers that address circumstances they'll face in life, and suggested ways to talk to them about those circumstances (based on their age) was a huge blessing. This is a book I feel like I need to continuously work through over and over again to guide me through praying for my kids. It's easy to feel overwhelmed with the prospect of raising children in today's society, but prayer is the best way to help us in that feat. Ultimately, we have to come to a place where we realize that there's only so much we can do, and God is in control. Wonderfully, He loves our kids abundantly more than we every could. It says in the book, "We don't have to be perfect prayers, nor do our prayers have to be perfect, because the God who hears us and loves us - and our girls - is perfect and perfectly able." What an amazingly comforting thought.

If you have girls, I couldn't more strongly recommend this book. I believe it has helped make my prayers more focused and effective, and it has given me ideas of how to talk to my kids now, and in the future about what it means to be a Christ-follower. I pray it has a similar impact on your family as well.

Thank you to Bethany House Publishers for providing me with a copy of this book to review. All opinions, however, are my own.