A parent’s prayer

For sleepless nights and first steps, we give you thanks. For children from the next county and children from around the globe, we give you thanks. For doubts about parenting and outpourings of love, we give you thanks. For healthy and whole children and children with special needs, we give you thanks. For patience and understanding, we give you thanks. For birth mothers and adoptive mothers, we give you thanks. For judges, social workers, therapists and doctors, we give you thanks. Most of all, for having adopted us as your own children, O God, we give you unending thanks. Amen.

This message is adapted from Living from the Heart of God: A journal for life’s stages, published by Women of the ELCA in 2007.