A mother's prayer

I've been following the Fort Hood shooting with sadness and interest. I mainly just read the stories about the acts of heroism that have come out of that tragedy. I especially love the story of police sergeant Kimberly Munyer, a 34-year-old mother and civilian cop who took down the murderer with four shots to the torso while taking some bullets herself. She is well. She is a hero.

This article caught my eye today on CNN.com. It was about a local fire chief who rushed to the scene to help. He found Officer Munyer and stayed with her until she was transported for medical care. However, it was what he described doing when he arrived on the scene before he even found her that caught my attention. He said it was chaos when he got there. With no clear sense of what was going on but the well-trained instinct to dive in and help, the very first thing he did was pray. In his words:

Rhoads, who began as a volunteer firefighter 26 years ago when he was just a teen, took over the scene as incident commander. But first, he paused for a quick prayer. "I just asked the Lord to be with me, to give me the strength and the courage I need to do my job wisely and keep my people safe."

That really struck me. I realized that he was there as a first responder to save people's lives in that moment.

But I also realized that as a mother, that's a prayer in pretty much those exact words that I need to pray for my children, and their battle in a world that devalues morality, every day.

And so I will. I will arm them with truth and a love of Christ, a knowledge of good, with kindness and fairness and virtue. And then I will send them out at the start of each morning, and pray this prayer for them.