I was in the middle of working on my first book to encourage moms when I received a text from my own momma. It was a photo of a page of her journal, and in her cursive handwriting was written, “I pray for the new baby that he/she would be a testimony to Your love and power to sustain parents especially moms through hard times and trials.”

It took me a minute to understand what I was reading.

Before I was born, before my mom even knew if she was having a boy or a girl, she had prayed very specific prayers for her baby… for me. She had prayed that I would be a testimony of God’s love and power to sustain moms through hard times and trials. And there I was literally living the fulfillment of her prayer, while holding proof of her prayer in my hands. It was humbling and sent me to my knees, praying for my own children.

My mom couldn’t have known what was coming for her baby. She couldn’t have known that someday I’d create a website for moms or write mom books. She couldn’t have known that I’d begin an online community where over one million moms would gather nightly in prayer (A ministry we’d eventually run together.) She couldn’t have known that God would call me to this specific work, but God knew, and He heard her. And perhaps He was the One who placed that prayer in her heart in the first place over thirty years ago.

If I’m being honest, I pray for my children, but I worry about them more. Jesus taught in Matthew 6:27, “Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” The easy answer is obviously no. We cannot add to our lives or our children’s lives by worrying about them, but we add tremendously to the lives of our children by praying for them. Prayer takes what we cannot control and hands it over to the Lord, inviting Him to do what only He can with it. A mom should never underestimate the power of her prayers.

Hannah is one woman in Scripture who exemplifies this profoundly. We read her story in 1 Samuel 1. Unable to have children, Hannah prayed to the Lord, weeping bitterly. And she made a vow, saying, “LORD Almighty, if you will only look on your servant’s misery and remember me, and not forget your servant but give her a son, then I will give him to the LORD for all the days of his life.”

The priest saw Hannah praying without using words and thought she was drunk. When she explained what she was doing, the priest replied, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant you what you have asked of him.”

Scripture says that in due time Hannah had a son and she dedicated his life to the Lord.

Sometimes we pray without words, and sometimes God answers us without words. And when Hannah gave birth to a baby boy, it was as if God said to her, “I heard you.”

The Lord heard Hannah. The Lord heard my mom. And the Lord hears you and me too. I don’t know what you’re believing for, I don’t know what you have prayed and forgotten about, but I promise God heard, He remembers, and He is bringing it all together in His time.

Where the world presents moments to worry, God says, “Invite Me to be a part of your parenting. Invite Me to do what only I can do with your kids. Ask for My purpose and destiny for them. Pray the words that I placed on your heart. Pray believing that I love your children even more than you do, and I want to bless them.”

And friend? Don’t forget to write your prayers down, because you might just read them thirty years from now and realize that God heard every word.

This is one of the 75 devotions from my book, Truth Unchanging: Hearing God Daily in the Midst of Motherhood. Take a minute to discover more truth inside.