A Prayer for My Grandchild

The mercy of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him, and his righteousness unto children's children.
— Psalm 103:17

There's a kind of love that catches a body off guard the first time we hold our child's child — softer than we'd have guessed, and fiercer too. A body would think the heart'd be worn smooth by that age. Instead it goes and grows itself a whole new room. And the thing I keep coming back to, looking at that little face, is the old promise that the Lord's mercy runs on past us — to our children, and to their children after them, further down the line than we will ever see. They are already inside that mercy. The first thing we want to do with them is pray, and that's where we start.

Lord, thank you for this child.
I didn't know my heart had this much room left in it until they came along, and here it is, full to the brim.
Watch over them, every day of the life ahead of them — the days I'll see and the days I won't.
Keep them safe. Keep them kind.
And somewhere along the way, when they're old enough to wonder about such things, let them come to know you for themselves — not because anybody made them, but because they went looking and found you good.
Let your mercy follow them all the way down their road, the way it has followed us down ours.
Amen.

Of course, there's no wrapping a child in cotton wool, much as we'd like to. They'll grow up into a world that'll be hard on them in places, the same as it was hard on us, and there's no praying that away. But here's what I've come to: the prayer isn't a fence around them — it's a handing of them, over and over, to the One whose mercy was reaching toward them long before we were, and who will be with them in every room we can't follow them into. We won't always be there. He always will. That's a thing worth saying over a sleeping child, and worth holding to when they're grown and gone.

Say it over the little ones you love. And if you'd like a few quiet words to start each day, Ruby writes a short devotional every morning in the same spirit — a verse, and something plain and steadying for whatever the day brings. You can subscribe — it's free, or stay a while and read more of her writing.