Today is National Single Parents Day. For someone who was pretty much a hot mess raising one child, with a spouse and grandparents and some awesome and helpful friends in town, single parents are pretty much heroes to me.

So I offer up this prayer for single parents today.

Gracious God, we lift up single parents to you.

Those who do the pick up and the drop off.

Those who read the bedtime stories every night.

Those who struggle to maintain good relationships with ex-spouses for the health and harmony of their children.

Those who birthed their children never expecting to be a single parent, and those who chose to be a single parent even though they had no clue what to expect.

May they feel You working in and around and through their beautiful families.

May they give themselves grace for those times when breakfast is peanut butter on a hot dog bun because there’s been no time to get to the store or the check doesn’t come for another two days.

May there always be a friend to call when they can’t figure out how to get everybody where they need to be when they need to be there.

May their employers be truly family-friendly and supportive when a kid is sick, or hurt, or in trouble.

May they hear less “I don’t know how you do it” from people and more “what can I do to help?”

May they never lose sight of the important work they are doing in loving and nurturing and shaping these precious, precocious, infuriating, hilarious, annoying, totally huggable creatures you have entrusted to their care.

Give them abundant amounts of love, patience, strength, grace, forgiveness and laughter…and the knowledge that the work they do is God’s work, indeed.

Amen.

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