Things happen when mothers pray

Just before my mom died she told me that she prayed for me to become a preacher even while I was still in the womb. I'd suspected it all along. The last thing I wanted to do was be a preacher, but I couldn't seem to find my place in the world until I yielded to it. That was thirty-five years ago, and I've never regretted it.

Like my mother, all moms come equipped with a powerful influence over their children, especially the boys. That's both for good or ill. I've seen men interviewed in prison who told, weeping, of drug-addicted, prostitute moms who abused and wrecked their son's psychological landscape.

But I've also seen moms steer their children into a close walk with God. And I've seen them try year after year to mold a rebellious child into God's destiny for him or her.

In a recent issue of Pray! magazine, Patricia VanDerMerwe writes about praying for decades for her son who's struggled with drugs since childhood. In the article, called A Painful Privilege, she tells of years of waiting for a breakthrough, which still hasn't happened... yet. I admire her tenacity as a mom, as a praying mom.

I think most successful spiritual leaders would credit their moms, their praying moms, for guiding them to the place where God wanted them to serve.

I know Samuel would. His mother, Hannah, prayed intensely to have a son, and vowed to give him back to God as soon as he was weaned. She made good on the vow, so Samuel grew up serving with Eli the priest in the tabernacle.

Samuel changed his world. He became a God-ordained bridge between the wild period of the Judges and the glory days of Israel's kings.

"The LORD was with Samuel as he grew up, and he let none of his words fall to the ground... And Samuel's word came to all Israel." (1 Samuel 3:19, 4:1 NIV).

Hannah can take a large share of the credit for that.