Psalm 135:4: “For the Lord has chosen Jacob to be his own,
Israel to be his treasured possession.” I recall reading this
verse on the exact day of my son Jacob’s seventeenth
birthday. He attended a public school, and though I prayed for
him daily, I felt and heard God saying something more
important to me. It went something like this:
Jacob is your only son. You are the only woman in his life right now
who will show him how much I love him. There isn’t a teacher or
girlfriend or another friend’s mother who loves him like you do and
like I do. Increase your prayers for him. As he leaves for college,
increase your fasting for him. Treat him as your most treasured
possession.When Jake came home from high school that afternoon, I
told him, “Jake, I got a word from the Lord for you today!” He,
like a typical teenager, asked, “Yeah, what was that?” I then
gave him the verse and said something way too mushy and
spiritual, “You are God’s treasured possession and you’re my
treasured possession.” I also mentioned that I felt God had
asked me to pray and fast for him weekly throughout the rest of
high school and college. He gave me that “look”—the one that
says you aren’t so sure you want someone to do what they
just said they were going to do.
It’s been over thirteen years since I read that verse on his
birthday. But I’ll never forget the day I read it, how I felt when I
read it, how it impacted my life and kept me focused on the
commitment to be a praying, fasting mother when I didn’t
always feel like it! In fact, it was almost a decade before I felt
God release me from fasting one or more meals each week for
my son. Right about that time, he returned home to live with us
after years away studying and working. Within a few short