These prayers speak to the deep cries of our beloved young people’s hearts—the ones they rarely say out loud. Not the words they post on social media or share in conversation, but the longings and wounds that live underneath it all, so often hidden yet still painfully real.

You will feel emotions. Maybe emotions such as fear and anger. Remember that all emotions, even the ones you are feeling, will lead you to God too.

We pray. Parents, pray. #thebravepray.

Cry: “I wish someone would really see me—not my posts, not my progress, but me.”

My beloved is growing up in a world too heavy for their soul. A world that never sleeps, that never stops shouting, that fills every silence with a scroll of sorrow or tragedy or a sale. His/her brain is still forming—and already overwhelmed. Let my beloved know it’s okay to rest, to unplug, and to breathe without the weight of breaking news and breaking hearts.

My beloved’s worth is not a statistic, a like, a follower count. Strip away the need to measure up. Strip away the pressure to respond, perform, curate. Let my beloved know that he/she is not a brand but a soul. A soul of great value, handcrafted by you.

Protect my beloved from the cruelty that never sleeps:  from the bullying that follows them home through screens; from the comparisons that shrink their sense of self; from the consumerism that tells them their deepest desires can be bought, optimized, or delivered overnight.

Help my beloved to walk at your pace—slow, sacred, unseen by most, but steady.

Because what they long for is not just connection but communion. Not just attention but presence. And no app or chatbot can deliver that. Only you.

Meet my beloved in the ache:  the ache for meaning, for belonging, and
for love without condition.

And remind my beloved, always: He/she has never scrolled out of your sight; never been filtered beyond your recognition; and never been unloved. Amen.

Cry: “I want to believe I’m lovable, but I feel abandoned.”

Help me to teach what is true of you—that your love leads, not pushes. That your love invites, not demands. That your love draws near, never shoves away. Help me live and speak this truth so clearly that my beloved knows it deeply: they belong to you. Not because they earned it. Not because they proved themselves worthy. But because you made them, and that is enough.

You created the world—they didn’t choose that. You created them—they didn’t choose that either. But in being born, they were already given worth. Worthiness is their birthright. My beloved was born to be loved. May they begin to believe that—especially when the world tells them otherwise.

I pray against the many abandonments they have already experienced. The abandonment that came from parents who couldn’t stay or didn’t know how to love well. The abandonment felt in school systems that measured them by performance and not potential. The abandonment by churches that preached grace but practiced shame. The ways social media has used their longing for connection and turned it into currency. The friends who disappeared when they needed them most. The moments society made them feel like a transaction instead of a soul.

When our teens are labeled as entitled or narcissistic, what’s often beneath the surface is grief. Grief from being overlooked. Grief from feeling invisible. Grief from abandonment they didn’t choose but now carry. Help us not to miss this pain. Help us not to judge what we haven’t first tried to understand.

We pray to say out loud: we see the abandonment. And we commit to being people who do not walk away. Let us be the ones who stay. Who listen. Who show up. Who love without requiring performance. Let us be a reflection of the One who has never left.

Because you have not abandoned them. You never could. You never will. It’s not in your nature to give up on the ones you love—and you are love. Let that truth be the loudest voice in my beloved’s life. Amen.

Cry: “I want to believe that God is for me, but who is God?”

I pray my beloved discovers you not as a debt collector, but as the father who runs, who pursues.

Run to my beloved when they feel messy. Run to them when they’re hiding in shame. Run to them when they’ve tried so hard to be perfect and still feel like it’s never enough. Let my beloved know that your love doesn’t need earning. That they don’t have to perform for your presence. Free them from the exhausting cycle of trying to be “good enough.”

Reveal to my beloved that you are not distant or detached, but Emmanuel—God with us. You are the Shepherd who leaves the ninety-nine to find the one, the Healer who touches the unclean without hesitation, the Savior who weeps with us before raising the dead. You are not cold justice or vague mystery—you are mercy in motion, holiness wrapped in compassion. Let my beloved know you as the One who sees, who knows, and who still chooses to stay. Let that truth settle into their soul: that you are not just for them–you are with them, even now.

Let them rest in the truth that everything you have is already theirs—grace, welcome, belonging. May they know this isn’t a platitude but a radical invitation. Let them be found, not because they’ve figured everything out, but because you never stopped looking for them. Bring them home to a love that restores, frees, and stays. Amen.

Cry: “I want real friendships, not just group chats, not my AI chatbot buddy.”

I pray my beloved makes friendships that are real, not just digital echoes. Bring into their life friends who truly see them, who stay when things get messy, who laugh deep and cry honest. Send them friends who don’t just scroll past but sit close—who remind them of their worth, who walk beside them through both silence and celebration. Make room in my beloved’s life for soul friendships and a full life team.

Let my beloved know they were never meant to carry life alone.

Protect their heart from the pull of synthetic closeness—the kind that flatters without depth, listens without cost, and mimics intimacy without offering true connection, especially the kind fed by AI algorithms. I know how easy it is to turn to the comfort of something that always responds, always agrees.

But real relationships are sacred work. They require presence, patience, vulnerability. Don’t let my beloved settle for simulations of love when what they crave is the transforming power of being known and loved in full humanity.

Give my beloved adults to be safe places to hold that calm space so the nervous system has a chance to release the cortisol and toxic stress that is constantly being carried around. Give them adults who will listen to the wonder and daydreams and doubts and fears—all of it.

We adults also have to do our job to get offline and do what we have to do to regulate.

And above all, give my beloved a lived, not just learned, experience of your love—a love that is embodied, relational, and real. Amen.

Cry: “I want to rest, but I don’t know how to stop.”

Slow my beloved down—not just their calendar, but their soul. In a world that never stops striving, teach them they don’t have to hustle to be loved. Let them feel the holy permission to rest—-not as laziness, but as an act of trust.

When the world tells my beloved to prove their worth with grades, with trophies, with perfect photos, whisper instead:  You began as enough. Worthiness is your birthright.

Remind my beloved that stillness does not disqualify them. That silence isn’t failure. That they are deeply worthy even when they produce nothing, post nothing, accomplish nothing.

Let them find peace in simply being—-being held, being loved, being enough.

Free my beloved from the weight of perfection. Let them know they were never meant to carry that burden. They are not their test scores. They are not their social status. They are not the algorithm’s approval.

Their identity is anchored in you—chosen, cherished, already whole.

Show them the beauty of imperfection, the strength of being honest.

Quiet the voices that scream otherwise. Mute the noise that keeps them anxious, performing, and afraid.

Let your voice rise above it all—-gentle, steady, true. Amen.

Cry: “I’m tired of pretending I’m okay.”

I don’t want the social media algorithm of my child. I want to know what is really going on.

I want to be trusted with the doubts and fears, the crises, the questions that keep him/her up at night. I don’t want my beloved to tell me one thing and then I find out he/she is someone else with another life I don’t recognize. I long to know the soul behind the posts—-the ache, the wonder, the battle to belong.

When my beloved feels pressure to smile through the pain, give them the bravery to trust me or another adult with the truth. Let them know it’s okay to fall apart sometimes. It’s okay to not be okay. Meet my beloved in the middle of their pretending, because you already see it all.

And still, you stay. Faithful is your name.

Give my beloved the holy bravery to be seen—fully, honestly, even messy.

And give me, as their parent, the tenderness to receive them with grace. Amen.

Cry: “I don’t trust the world and I don’t know how to trust God.”

I see the world my children and their generation are growing up in, and I grieve the weight they carry.

They haven’t lost faith—not exactly. They’ve been trained to second-guess, conditioned to be uncertain at every turn so search a machine, ask AI.

This is not just the culture, but by companies that profit off of their ache, industries that feed their fear and sell them the solution in the same breath.

Our young people are surrounded—-by apps that offer connection but deepen loneliness; by voices that question their every emotion, only to sell them a diagnosis; by a machine-driven world that answers fast but erodes trust in their own thoughts.

And so they doubt—doubt their decisions; doubt their words; doubt their worth.

They hold back from love, not because they don’t want it, but because the checklists and red flags feel safer than hope. Because in a world without faith, doubt has become their only defense.

We were never meant to live this way. Our kids were not made for algorithms, but for communion. Not for curated identities but for your everlasting image in them.

Rescue them from this devil’s bargain.

Restore their wonder. Renew their confidence in your truth. Remind them that faith is not weakness—it is the brave act of living fully when something doesn’t feel certain.

Give them discernment, yes—but also bravery to trust, to love, to hope.

May they know they don’t have to outsource their worth or question every thought or match with perfection to be loved. May they know you—not a product, not a theory, not another voice in the algorithm, but a person, faithful and true.

Be their anchor in a sea of doubt.

And when I as a parent feel helpless—remind me you are not. Amen.

Cry: “I want to see the world changed, and to have a part in it.”

Thank You for the mercy already rising in my beloved. I see it in how they notice the hurting, how they make space for the overlooked, how they care for the earth, and how they show up for each other.

Let this compassion keep growing. Let it not grow cold in a world that often rewards selfishness. Let it not grow cold in the face of indifference.

My beloved sees people as people-with stories, with dignity, with worth. And they’re brave enough to care, to step in, to act.

Hold them close in that bravery. When the world resists, when the burden feels too heavy, don’t let their heart harden. Don’t let their fire burn out.

Root their mercy deep in you:  where it stays steady, where it grows bold, where it cannot be taken.

Let mercy—not cynicism—be what shapes them. Let love—not fear—be what leads them. Amen.

Cry: “I want to dream, but I’m afraid to be disappointed again.”

Life has hurt my beloved so much already. I pray for hope to keep growing. So trying keeps happening. For grit to be a definer of my beloved.

When failure comes–and it will–let my beloved know it means they were brave enough to try. That trying is a declaration saying, I believe I am worthy.

Help me to teach my beloved that failure doesn’t make them less. That they are still worthy. Worthy to rise again. Worthy to begin again.

God was the first to speak to your beloved. He told your beloved the truth. Psalm 51:6 says “Yet you desired faithfulness even in the womb; you taught me wisdom in that secret place.” Remind my beloved what you said to him/her in the womb before this life belonged to me.

And help me say, with my words and with my life:  You cannot disappoint me. You are not too much. You are not a burden.

My beloved is a gift:  to me, to the world, and always, always to you. Amen.

Cry: “I don’t want to be defined by what hurt me.”

I know my beloved is wonderfully made with purpose, intention, and love.

May my beloved grow to see him/herself that way, too. More than a diagnosis. More than what’s been done to them. May trauma never be the full story. May it never name them.

Their personality is not a problem to fix. Their sensitivity is not weakness. Their quirks are not symptoms. They are not a list of labels.

My beloved is a soul:  not a disorder, not a category, not a case to be managed.

Don’t let the hard things they’ve lived through become the loudest voice in their story. Give them resilience and grit, and also gentleness, compassion for themselves and others.

Let pain not make them harder, but more human. More loving, not more bitter. More whole, not more hidden.

May they be known by the healing; by the brave, small choices they make to keep going; to keep trusting; to keep becoming. Not just by what broke them but by what you’re restoring in them.

What a good larger story. Amen.

Cry: “I miss the version of me who felt things fully, then I learned to numb.”

If my beloved has gone numb from all the noise or pain, bring them gently back to life. Let them know it’s okay to feel deeply. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to wonder. Please slow them down so my beloved can wonder…and daydream…again. Let their heart stay soft in a world that tells them to harden. Soften what has grown hard. Remind my beloved that all emotions lead to God.

These emotions are not a dysregulated nervous system but part of living. These emotions are not a sign of a mental health problem.

Naming emotions doesn’t give the emotions power, it gives us power–the power to move through them, make meaning, make new choices, and learn about ourselves and the world. May my beloved trust me with his/he emotions, even in the midst of being overwhelmed by them.

Give my beloved adults who will help them feel safe to be in their emotions. Help me to notice when I need to join them in their emotions.

My beloved is feeling some disappointments right now. Lead them through the spectrum of emotions of disappointments so they see that you are with them through all of it. Amen.

Cry: “I want to believe in something. I hope it is God.”

I lift up this generation—our sons, our daughters, and all the young people walking through a world that feels like it’s crumbling beneath them. Because of the internet and social media and chatbots, they have more access than ever before, but less to stand on.

The foundations we once trusted—truth, community, shared meaning—are gone or questioned. And so they question everything.

They doubt what it means to love; what it means to live; what it means to be good; and if any of it is worth the effort.

Be the steady ground beneath their feet when nothing else holds. Be the voice that speaks louder than cynicism and shame. Show them that faith is not foolish, that hope is not naive, and that love—real love—is the strongest force in the universe.

Where they’ve seen hypocrisy, let them see truth.

Where they’ve been mocked for believing, give them courage to believe still.

Where they feel alone, surround them with the unshakable presence of your Spirit.

Hold them steady. And when they wonder if life is worth living, whisper into their ache: “Yes. And you are worth loving.”

Raise up my beloved as part of the remnant—those quiet few who still carry the way of Jesus deep in their souls.

In a world that has traded prayer for self-affirmation and confession for curated vulnerability, let my beloved hear your voice above the noise. Let them be curious—not just about healing, but about the Healer.

Let my beloved speak the name of Jesus not with fear, but with quiet fire. Let their love be brave, their mercy deep, their truth clear.

May their life whisper what this world forgot: that grace is real, and Jesus still saves. Amen.