Our Father, Who Art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thank You for my life. Thank You for allowing me to be a normal-functioning human being. Thank You for your love to mankind which is patterned by true love in marriage. Thank You for my spouse who tolerates my differences, and thank You for the child that You have allowed us to love, by which we are both blessed and brought closer together.

May You guide me that I may let my child live his own life instead of the life I wish I had lived. Please guard me against burdening the child with doing what I had failed to do.

Help me to see the missteps of this child today in perspective against the long road he must travel and please grant me the grace to be patient with his slow pace.

Please give me the wisdom to know when to smile at the small mischiefs of his age and when to show firmness against the impulses which he fears and cannot handle.

Help me, Father, to hear the anguish in my child's heart through the din of angry words or across the gulf of brooding silence. And having heard, please grant me the ability to bridge the gap between us - with understanding.

Guide me that I may raise my voice more in joy at what my child is than vexation at what my child is not so that each day my child may grow in sureness of himself.

Then, Heavenly Father, help me to regard my child that You have given with genuine affection so that he will feel affection for others. Please give me strength to free my child from my keep so that my child can move strongly on his own.

Please help me to teach my child Your ways that he understands that Your way is best. And may Your will be done with me, as parent, as well as with my child.

Finally, Father, let me be an example of love and morals that have been revealed through the Bible and by the life and death of Your only begotten Son who died for mankind. May Your will be done and not mine own. In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.

Guardian of Truth XXVIII: 12, p. 364
June 21, 1984