Heavenly Father,
Today, I lift up my student to You—their heart, their dreams, their fears, and all the places where expectation and disappointment have taken root.
There are times they hope for things, but confusion grows when their hopes start to turn into expectations—demands, even—about how life should look, how You should act, and what "good" should mean. Help them release the illusion of control. Remind them, gently and clearly, that hope doesn’t require everything to go a certain way—it simply trusts that You are good no matter the outcome.
Where my child is carrying unspoken expectations of You, God, I ask that You meet them not with shame but with grace. Show them that You are not limited to their boxes—You are bigger, kinder, and more present than they’ve dared to imagine.
And when they fall short—when they fail, mess up, or feel like they've missed the mark—remind them that Your love is not based on performance. It’s based on who You are. Speak to them the flipside truth: that their failure doesn’t define them. Your goodness does.
Lord, heal the image they carry of You. Where they have believed You are disappointed in them, replace that lie with Your steady gaze of love. Help them believe that when You think about them, You think "I love you." Let that be the voice that drowns out fear, shame, and the crushing pressure to be perfect.
May they know that even in failure, even when life doesn’t go as planned, even when hope feels hard—You are still with them. And that is more than enough.
In the name of Jesus,
Amen.
