Mothers, pray for your children!
“And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened” (Lk. 11,9-10).
About one and a half thousand years ago loving mother Monika prayed for her son. She was mother of well-known Saint Augustine.
Augustine lived in sin. And heart of mother grieved day and night. She prayed for him many years, and the son continued to conduct dissolute life, and the precipice between him and God increased every year. But mother continued to appeal to the Lord and showed love to the son in everything in what only could. And when she despaired of the sufferings, she went to the bishop of local church and told about her grief. The bishop listened to her and told: «Go, live as you lived before, it is can't be, that the child of such tears and prayers was lost».
Heart of mother rose; she apprehended these words as words of the Lord. A lot of time passed after that. When her son was thirty three years, suddenly he was attacked by not explainable melancholy. He began to analyze his own life. And once he went in a far corner of a garden and opened his heart to Jesus, he cried before Him and repented.
There was no limit to happiness of mother, and in the pleasure she told to her son Augustine: «my Son, the most pleasure in this life for me is to know that you have known God now. I had one desire: to see you as a Christian before I will die. My Lord also generously awarded me. He granted to me to see you devoted entirely to service to Him».
There is nothing holier and more disinterested than love of mother; any attachment, any love, any passion either is weak, or is self-interested in comparison with it. Mother is more than the friend. Mother – the careful head of our life, and especially, if she is Christian. Person, who has God-fearing mother will never be poor. The parent prayer can lift you from a sea bottom. Mothers, pray; pray constantly for your children!
P.Shatrov