“I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy…” – Philippians 1:3-4, NIV
Tess didn’t know much about her mother-in-law, Deanna. By the time Tess met her husband, the older woman was suffering from severe dementia. Deanna didn’t recognize her son or other family members.
Still, Tess felt a bond with the woman that she couldn’t shake. When Deanna was too fragile to live on her own, Tess welcomed her into the home she shared with her husband. She paid the woman’s bills, drove her to her doctor’s appointments, and tenderly cared for her.
When Deanna passed away after several years of living with her son and daughter-in-law, Tess cried. She grieved as if it had been her own mother she’d lost.
As Tess was helping her husband go through his mother’s things, she discovered a box of journals. They were Deanna’s prayer journals, where she’d recorded decades of prayers, hopes, and dreams.
She found entry after entry where Deanna prayed for her son’s future wife. She prayed for her health, her career, her relationships, and her spiritual walk. Again and again, the older woman had been faithful to pray over Tess’s life, thanking God for a woman she hadn’t even met.
God, thank You for the gift of praying mothers! Show me how to be a prayer warrior for those around me. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
