Family Talk Night Light for Parents

Help at Home

You are the helper of the fatherless. Psalm 10:14

When Kathy’s husband died, her sons were seventeen and twenty. Both boys missed their dad terribly. When they encountered difficulties that Kathy’s husband normally would have handled, she felt inadequate. The issues they faced at that age were not ones she could “kiss and make better.” So Kathy laid the situation at God’s feet through prayer, knowing that she needed help to deal wisely with her boys.

The Lord responded. When one son faced losing his job because he didn’t have a vehicle that would make it over snowy roads, a friend unexpectedly offered the use of his four-wheel-drive rig. When the other son hit a coyote with the used car he’d just purchased, a friend was there to offer advice and arrange for repairs. And when Kathy saw that her eldest son needed spiritual grounding and guidance, a mentor was provided in the form of his Christian boss at the fire station where he was interning.

Single parents can’t do it all for their kids, especially in times of hardship or crisis. They need assistance from friends, relatives, neighbors, and fellow believers who heed the call of Scripture: “Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow” (Isaiah 1:17). Most of all, they need to take their needs in prayer to their loving Lord, the “helper of the fatherless” (Psalm 10:14).

Before you say good night…

Do you need to put your parenting issues before the Lord in prayer?

Do you know a single parent you could reach out to this week?

Lord Jesus, be our strength when we are overwhelmed, our hope when we are discouraged, and our confidence when we feel alone or afraid. May Your grace and power shine out of our weakness, for the sake of our children, and for the sake of all those who look to us for strength. Amen.

• From Night Light For Parents, by Dr. James & Shirley Dobson
  Copyright © 2000 by James Dobson, Inc. All rights reserved.