Spending time with your prodigal can be a dilemma.

You love your child, the person you know, the person you remember, the person you know he or she will be. You want to see that person, the one who has your whole heart.

You want to spend time with your prodigal, but seeing the effects of bad choices is difficult.

You want to spend time with your prodigal, but learning things you would rather not know is painful.

You want to spend time celebrating Jesus’ birth with your child, but your child may say he or she no longer believes that Jesus is God’s Son.

You want to have total and complete fellowship with your child,  but right now there is separation spiritually.

You want to spend time with your child, but sometimes those visits are anything but peaceful and joyful.

You long to hold your child and make everything right again, and spending time with him or her brings feelings of helplessness.

Sometimes the visits are bittersweet: full of love, but also full of difficult emotions, but love wins! LOVE WINS!

Commit your visit to the LORD through prayer. He alone can work miracles in the heart of your prodigal.

Merry Christmas, and a happy new year!

Our Father, I love __________ with my whole heart, and I thank You for him/her and the promises You have given me. I praise You as sovereign LORD, and I ask that You ordain our family times. Please do not allow anything to hinder our time together. Ordain our conversation. Use me to bless but not preach, to love but not smother, to be used by You and not try to control or change things myself or in my own version of wisdom. I pray that our home with be flooded with peace and joy that only comes from You and that __________ will remember the peace and joy that comes from being in right relationship with You and long for that again. I also pray that the effects of sin that I witness will not throw me into distress but will simply move me to pray in total faith, committing it all to you, knowing that You have this, You are Faithful, and I can trust You. In Jesus’ name I pray.