School-Year Blessing

Our Father, as the one who set the stars in place and know the number of hairs on every head, you also know the shape of every child's day, whether spent among rows of desks or around the family table, and you are not absent from a single one.
Over our new morning rhythms, brand new notebooks, new friends or teachers, new subjects of study, we bring before you these children as they step into this school year.

All: Be near to them, Lord, in the ordinary and the unknown.

For the children that are excited for this year — bless their eagerness; keep it kind. For the children who are anxious and unsure — bless their courage; let it grow. For the children who bounce between both, bless their trying.

Give them teachers who see them — whether their teachers stand at a front of a classroom or call them “Mom” or “Dad” — and surround them with friends who love them well, and if not friends yet, then give them patience while friendships take their slow root.

All: Be near to them, Lord, in the ordinary and the unknown.

When they do not know the answers, keep them from the fear being wrong now, that they might know in the future. When they do know the answers, let them not look down on the ones who don't yet.

When the room is loud with classmates or with siblings, or with the noise of their own thoughts and belonging or safety feels far away, remind them by your Spirit that Jesus himself sat among teachers as a boy, and grew, as they are growing now, in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and people.

All: Be near to them, Lord, in the ordinary and the unknown.

Bless their parents as they seek to remain faithfully present to you, themselves, and their children in the mornings, afternoons, and evenings of this new school year.

Let this church be a spiritual family who remembers them on Mondays, ask questions on Thursdays, who celebrate the highs, help carry the lows, and who carry them in prayer — by name, and often — before your throne.

All: Be near to them, Lord, in the ordinary and the unknown.

May you, Alabaster Kids, as children of God and brothers and sisters of Jesus – look for and find Jesus’ nearness in the ordinary and unknown of your desk, your hallways, your home, on the playground, at snack time and drop off and pick up. As those who belong to Jesus, there is no where you do not belong, are not loved, seen and safe in Jesus.

All: May Jesus bless you and keep you. His face shines on you with grace! His face smiles on you with peace! May you carry his name and kingdom in the small, simple, beautiful ways only you can! Amen.