Today’s special edition post is from Tova Dad, my favorite daughter and Virtual Assistant. She lives outside of Amarillo with her husband and their two daughters.

It was the longest of bedtimes. It was the latest of bedtimes.

OK, neither of those statements were accurate, but my former English teacher’s mind filled in the hyperbole – kind of like in this sentence.

In any case, those of you who have ever put worn-out children to bed while you are also worn-out can understand what I’m talking about.

All the bedtime-extending strategies had been used and were magnified by the exhaustion of back to school week.

I made the call that we would pretty much stick with the usual routine, which has recently included writing down their current prayer requests on a whiteboard in their room.

This new habit has made a way for other anxieties, concerns, frustrations, and simple information to be discussed a bit. I put this in the win column, despite the delay of my late night, extra dessert.

We started with the new Kindergartener’s requests and concerns, but by the time the 2nd Grader had made her contribution and we were ready to pray, the first one was asleep.

Nevertheless, I asked the big sister to start her prayer and I would finish to make sure all the requests on the board were prayed over.

The prayer started with a familiar rhythm.

I have to add here that other than repeating back prayers for the people we love when they were first starting to speak, we haven’t tried to workshop their prayers, unless they’re circling endlessly. Then we might suggest a firm, “We love you, God. Amen.”

So back to the prayer.

My mind had just started to wander because the fan was making the hanging whiteboard tap against the wall, when I noticed a shift in the pattern of the prayer.

It was going beyond thanking God for “Mama, Baba, our whole family, and everything you do…” and transitioning into thanksgiving for sending a Savior to our planet to pay for our sins so we could be a part of God’s family.

I’m paraphrasing here, because I was starting to get emotional, but it was a beautiful, sincere, sacrament of conversation I was blessed to witness.

When she concluded the prayer, she asked if I had liked it. I said it was a beautiful prayer. She said she had been thinking about the way that her dad and I pray, and she wanted to talk to God that way too. She said she liked talking to God and thanking him for loving us.

So, now I’m visibly wiping at tears. I’m not even sure what I said in response – something along the lines of how it made me happy to get to hear her talk to God about what she felt in her heart.

Now the musical theatre geek in me wants to add something about “Children Will Listen” from “Into the Woods.” But there was another phrase that I could feel repeating in my head as we concluded bedtime.

It comes from one of their books that we often read at bedtime, I Love You THIS Much, written by Lynn Hodges and Sue Buchanan (I’ve highlighted the phrase that stuck out in my mind tonight).

I am NOT a perfect parent, if that even exists. (I’m pretty sure the arguments I have with the younger sister will be a central theme of the big sister’s future therapy sessions.)

In that moment before her prayer started, I had been silently listing my faults, and debating adding my own prayer requests to the board (and I still may).

I was going to request prayers to motivate me to use my child-free hours during the day to get caught up on laundry, or dishes, or completing half-finished crafts, or exercise more, or, meal-prep, or, or, or…

You get the picture.

It reminded me of the time when Jesus visited the home of Martha, Mary, and Lazarus in Luke 10:39-42,

And later in John 12:3 and 7, after Mary had broken an alabaster jar of expensive perfume,

God chose that moment to remind me that all the folded laundry I could put away in a lifetime would not be lauded in my children’s memories. Perfect meals made and consumed in isolation would not be listed as a blessing. My BMI (while sometimes addressed in bedtime prayers – “God help Mama’s big belly so she feels better”) is not anything worthy of praise.

But the guardianship of my most precious treasures, my role in ushering them to the throne of God – THAT’S worth the failure of all of my “homemaking” in perpetuity. It’s worth every late night question. It’s worth admitting my faults to my children and seeking their forgiveness when I have sinned against them. It’s worth nothing less than their very souls.

So as long as I am in their lives, you’ll have to forgive the piles of laundry and the messy kitchen. Like Mary, I know the one thing worth being concerned about.

It was the most precious of bedtimes. It was the most amazing of bedtimes.