Prayer is a special condition of a person, but learning it is not at all easy. It would seem that this is nothing complicated. After all, there are many prayer books now, open any and read anything. But it turns out this is not a prayer.
Prayer is a conversation with God. Not all contemporaries even understand who God is. Many perceive Him as a kind of Social Security or quick response center in critical situations. From this, any prayer, whether it is a
maternal prayer for a child, or for the health of loved ones, for work, exams or getting an apartment, turns into some kind of eternal begging.
A man does not just pray, he demands, insists on his own, I am sure that it will be better just as he wishes! This is especially characteristic where motherly prayers for their children are heard. For some reason, a woman considers herself endowed with the inalienable right to know what is best for her son or daughter.
In fact, a person does not always imagine what is best even for him, not to mention his child.
The story of how the mother of a criminal convinced him from God when he was only three years old is well known. An insistent maternal prayer for the son was heard, the child recovered, but did not deliver the joy of the mother at all: he was hanged for a state crime at a young age, and she herself bitterly repented of having insisted on her many years ago. Therefore, even if the mother prays for good, it is better to rely on the will of God.
Maternal prayer really has a special power before God. But not because mothers are provided for some reason with special benefits. No, just a mother more often than others loves completely altruistically. She lives for the sake of the child, raises him in order to become an adult, and does not require anything in return. Such is motherly love ideally.
Therefore, maternal prayer for a son or for a daughter often has special power in the eyes of God.
But any prayer to God must be imbued with humility. Yes, of course, every person has desires, and he humbly sets forth these desires to God. There is nothing wrong. Just like there is nothing wrong with a child asking parents for a toy. No one will blame the baby for this. But if he starts screaming and demanding, crying, then this is already unacceptable and punishable.
The strength of the mother’s prayer is precisely in humility: “I want and pray. But let it be, as you wish, Lord. ” Understanding that the true good for us is the fulfillment of the will of God, humility and prayer for our needs - this is a truly Orthodox attitude.
Maternal prayer, of course, supports and strengthens children. When a mother asks for them not wealth and health, but obvious spiritual benefits, this always benefits her baby. The psyche of people, values change very much over time. More recently, the baby was treated as a gift from God. Having several children of about the same age, it was easier for her to come to terms with the fact that one of them would not survive. Now the child is an idol, the idol of the whole family, so it is simply impossible for the mother to come to terms with the fact that his interests may be affected in some way.
Entrusting the care of the fate of your own child to the Lord and stepping aside is a very wise decision for most situations, but not everyone is capable of it.