A few weekends ago, I had a rough night of prayer – the kind that has you awake at 3 a.m. straightening rooms and hanging up laundry just because you’re too unsettled to sit still.

For about a week I’d been having dreams where I was arguing with my 13-year-old son. In my dreams, Jessie was angry and challenging me and I was grasping for control. I was lecturing and clamping down on every wrong thing he did. I was all truth and very little mercy.

And I was driving him away. His precious heart was hardening.

Even when I was awake, I wrestled with those dreams and the truth that they might hold. Finally, those thoughts came to a peak one Saturday night. I don’t know what triggered it, but I found myself in tears, crying out to God for help.

Instead of praying for Jessie to have wisdom; for Jessie’s heart to heal from being separated from his biological parents; for Jessie to have courage and strength and joy… I prayed for myself to become the mother that Jessie needs.

That night, everything was on the table with God. If I needed to lay-off on the nagging, I’d do it. If I needed to give Jessie a little more space to make his own mistakes, I’d do it. Whatever it took for Jessie to know – really know – that he was loved unconditionally, I’d do it.

In the next few days, I started noticing more chances to reach out to Jessie, to snag a little fun time together. Things I wanted to teach him began to come up naturally in conversation. No lectures needed. And I was reminded that prayer does change things, especially me.

I love how author and pastor Bill Hybels puts it in his introduction to “Too Busy Not to Pray” ($15, InterVarsity Press). If we all prayed regularly, he writes:

“I believe hearts would soften. Habits would shift. Faith would expand. Love for the poor would increase. Positive, purposeful legacies would be built. And a ravenous hunger would rumble through us all to get usable….”

Now, that’s the power of prayer.