She emails, “Thanks for praying!”

Excellent or Praiseworthy is posted on Monday and Thursday nights.

“The prayer of a person living right with God is something powerful to be reckoned with.” — James 5:16 (The Message)

Editor’s Note: When military mothers go off to war there are many feelings which accompany them. Heather McColl Morgan has been a favorite writer for Excellent or Praiseworthy for years—and currently she is deployed.  A friend emailed Heather to tell her that she was praying for her. This is Heather’s reply to her friend:

Thanks for praying! I need it.

I’m not as good at my job as I feel I should be when going to war, in part from fear of failure, and part from focusing on getting home on time, to family all year. That needs prayer.

Then there is not a lot of fellowship of deployed motherhood to be had, just brief oases of dialogue. I see kids my daughter’s age in absolute squalor and I choke. But then I think, maybe it is good to have mothers going to war. We see things differently. Specifically, I need to find a way to share what I’m learning with other mothers without making it into a competition over whose circumstances are more difficult or ideal.

A lot of Christian women quietly disapprove of my profession, too. I want to encourage them: enjoy your days with little ones, don’t take them for granted, be happy in your decisions to work part-time or stay at home. But always know your circumstances could easily have been different and God would still bless you.

Don’t be afraid if God calls you as a mother to respond to a kingdom-building challenge that doesn’t revolve around the kids for a season…even if it’s only a week-long conference or a one day a week of service or study. God will make it mean something. God is your worth and purpose, not just your children.

Be allured by God’s ability to choose you for a task, and make you and your husband fit to brave it together. Even be willing to “go into Mordor,” if called, because you will find mothers around the world and in your backyard raising children in hellish conditions without anyone to light their way.

I know it’s a balance, and I plan on this being my last deployment, but the only guilt I entertain is the kind that helps me pray better and do my job better for my team. My daughter will understand that one day.

I don’t know how to share these things when most believing women only want to talk about “how hard it must be to leave her behind.” It is hard to talk about both the risks and the rewards. As a firefighter’s wife, you know something about this, much as any military wife does.

Thanks for remembering us with prayer, sister. We need it.

Questions to Share:

1. How can you pray for mothers, like Heather, who are assigned in war zones?

2. How can you pray for each other today?