The Power of Praying Scripture as a Special Needs Parent
My younger son has a speech delay, my older son a neurological-based speech disorder called apraxia that requires frequent and intensive speech therapy to learn to speak. He didn’t say his first words until he was almost four. Devastated by the lack of conversations I had with my children, one day I turned to scripture. Surely there was a passage or verse about speech that would encourage me, right? Written by Jenn Soehnlin
My younger son has a speech delay, my older son a neurological-based speech disorder called apraxia that requires frequent and intensive speech therapy to learn to speak. He didn’t say his first words until he was almost four. Devastated by the lack of conversations I had with my children, one day I turned to scripture. Surely there was a passage or verse about speech that would encourage me, right?
Before long, I found two scriptures relating to words and speech that jumped out at me.
“How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!” Psalm 119:10
“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.” Proverbs 25:11
When my children finally said their first word and then slowly added to their vocabularies, I viewed each of those words as something sweet, something special to treasure, like an apple of gold in settings of silver.
I then combined the words I loved from both of these verses to form my new prayer for my children. I prayed for new “sweet apples of gold” every morning and on the way to speech therapy and I thanked God for the new “sweet apples of gold” after my children said a new word or phrase. I honestly love this phrase to refer to my childrens’ speech and love how it has become a part of my prayers, praying God’s own words to thank Him for the new ones my children could now say.
After that, I became passionate about praying scripture and looking for scriptures to pray relating to topics that mattered to me and I wanted to see God move in.
Praying Scripture For Your Special Needs Children
As a special needs parent we learn to advocate for our children–with insurance companies, with doctors and specialists, with schools, with churches, and within the community. But one of the best ways to advocate for your child is on your knees before the throne of God.
But it’s also easy to pray for the things we want. We might pray for God to move mightily for our children in ways that are not in His will or timing, and then we grow discouraged by prayer, and begin to question God’s love and care for us and our children. I have found that praying scripture is one of the best ways to combat this discouragement, because we are aligning our prayers and desires with God’s own Word and His desires.
Here is a list of 15 scriptures to pray for your child with special needs. Feel free to print this list out and go through each verse one at a time. Consider praying one a day, or journaling your thoughts and prayers about each one. Make them personal to your child and your family’s situation.
Praying Scripture For Your Own Special Needs Parenting Journey
The special needs parenting journey can be lonely. It can be overwhelming. It can lead to a deep grief, depression, and/or an overwhelming anxiety you’ve never experienced before. You may be struggling in your faith and believing that God is good and cares for you and your child(ren).
I desperately prayed for relief and God felt so silent and so far away until I began turning to scripture and praying scripture for my own spiritual and physical wellbeing. By turning to and praying scripture, I was able to begin processing my thoughts and emotions in a godly, rather than worldly way and could hear the love He had for me and my children in His Word.
Here are 20 scriptures to pray as a special needs parent. These scriptures really helped me to let go of my own expectations and desires and trust God’s plan and purpose for me and my children. They restored hope and peace in my life and I pray they do the same in yours. Feel free to print them out and make them personal to your own journey, your own struggles and experiences.
There is power in God’s word, and there’s also power in our prayers. When you combine those two powers together, get ready to see God move in mighty ways in your life, your heart, your faith, and your children.
Written by Jenn Soehnlin
Jenn Soehnlin is a mother to two young boys who are precious blessings and who both have special needs. She is the author of Embracing This Special Life: Learning to Flourish as a Mother of a Child with Special Needs.
Jenn enjoys blogging about faith and special needs parenting atwww.embracing.life. You can also find her onFacebookandInstagram.
The Accidental Sleepover: How We Were Blessed By Blessing Others
One of the greatest challenges my son deals with is making relationships with his same age peers, whether typical or special needs…Written by John Felageller
One of the greatest challenges my son deals with is making relationships with his same age peers, whether typical or special needs. While he is friendly with some of the neighbor kids and a few of his friends from school, having him make “real” friends is something my wife and I are still very much working on.
We were amazed at the blessing our son received when a close friend down the street called my wife in a panic to let her know that her special needs son had an accident on their play-set in the backyard, so they had to rush him to the emergency room. Expecting a long day and night at the hospital, the mom had asked us if we could take her other son, the typical brother, to stay with us and possibly spend the night. My wife hurriedly said, “Yes” and within several minutes came the young boy, complete with an overnight bag. We prepared for what would turn out to be our son’s first sleepover.
Now hosting this type of a sleepover is a slightly different endeavor than those of typical kids, since our son is used to his standard routines of his favorite TV shows, iPad time, lots of eating and maybe some outside time before bed. Since our son can also not communicate verbally, it’s not always easy to figure out how he may want to interact with his friends.
Luckily, as we inquired with the boy, we discovered that many of his favorite things were things our son enjoyed as well! One of the first things I offered him was playing games on the Nintendo Wii, which is great for my son since he enjoys a lot of the sports games that I can give him an assist with. When we suggested some other movies or shows they could watch, they were also ones our son instantly gravitated towards. And, of course, dinner time was great for bonding, as we managed to get them both to sit down for a meal.
By the time we got to the nighttime stuff, our son went to his bed, but this time very excitedly and with a huge smile glued to his face. When my wife asked him through his iPad if he was glad his friend had come over, he confirmed with a hearty electronic “YES.”
The next morning we all got up, had breakfast, the boys watched a little TV together and we got ready for our usual Sunday routines. Our neighbor dropped by to pick her son up to go home. Confirmation that the night was a success, came later that day when the boy let his mom know he wanted to do it again!
We then realized that our willingness to bless someone else in turn blessed us in ways we couldn’t imagine just hours earlier. Comforting others in their moment of crisis allowed our son to be comforted with a gift of friendship, and a memory of his first sleepover, accidental or not, yet totally joyful.
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, ESV)
Written by John Felageller
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