It’s week four of our prayer journal, and we are praying for our children to have self-control.  Quick Note: Please subscribe to Pardon the Mess on iTunes or wherever you listen to our podcasts. Once you subscribe, you will receive notifications each time a new episode is out. In the next few weeks, we will stop sending out the weekly email reminders of our prayer podcasts (like this one), and we don’t want you to miss out. Once you subscribe, you will be notified each time we release a new episode. Okay, back to self-control. You may be thinking that self-control is not one of the more exciting things you will pray for your kids; but my goodness is it a critical one. Self-control (or lack thereof) has the capacity to impact our kids their entire lives. It shows up in dating relationships, finances, online accountability, occupations, health, marriage, and lots of other places. Take a minute to listen to this week’s podcast and pray with me as we consider self-control and how it impacts our kids. It may sound a bit dry at first, but the deeper you get into the concept, the more you realize the huge implications behind it. I hope you are enjoying the podcast we release each Monday morning, giving a few thoughts on the topic we are praying. Hopefully this is an encouragement as we band together to pray for our kids this school year. It would be such a blessing if you would take a minute to forward our podcast to your friends, spouse, small group – or anyone you feel led to ask to join you in praying each week. If you have not ordered a journal, they are still available. But either way, we want you to join us each week as we pray for our kids.  Our goal is to form a community of parents committed to praying for our kids this school year. In doing so, we pray you will tangibly feel God’s blessing on our families and schools, and that we will have testimonies to share with each other of the great things God accomplished this year.  The verse on the cover of our prayer journal is Romans 12:12: “Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.” May we all be “faithful in prayer” this school year!