The joys—and perils—of raising children from tots to teens don’t disappear when they enter adulthood. Faith-based publishers see an audience for books that offer prayers, guidance, and support to parents concerned for their adult children’s physical, emotional, financial, and spiritual well-being.
“From climate change to income inequality, from recession to pandemic realities, and more, it’s clear that young adults are stepping into a world that is vastly different from the one their parents and mentors navigated,” says Laura Leonard, acquisitions editor for Herald Press, an imprint of Menno Media. Herald is releasing Finding Our Way Forward: When the Children We Love Become Adults in February 2023. Author Melanie Springer Mock, a mother and an English professor, writes that parents never outgrow their role in helping their adult children “become who God created them to be in a world beset by the kind of chaos and crises no generation has had to navigate before.”
End Game Press will release The 7 Ps of Prayer, by freelance writer and editor Rhett Wilson, in September 2023. End Game senior publisher Victoria Duerstock calls the book “practical and applicable.” Wilson focuses on prayers for God’s protection, provision, and presence. “We can’t immunize our families from attacks,” he writes. “We can’t control other people’s decisions. Nor can we keep the evil one’s fiery darts from flying. But another option exists. Dads and moms, grandmas and grandpas can lift up a shield of prayer.”
And Harvest House has released a reprinting of Stormie Omartian’s bestselling The Power of Praying for Your Adult Children in a keepsake edition with an imitation-leather binding and embossed cover details. Since its initial publication in 2009 as part of Omartian’s Power of Praying series, the book “has sold more than 739,000 copies, and its companion, For Your Adult Children Book of Prayers—also published in 2009—has sold more than 270,000 copies,” says associate trade editor Emma Saisslin.
“We all need to understand that we can’t ‘fix’ or ‘change’ our adult children,” Omartian writes. “Our job is to release [them] into God’s hands and then pray for the Lord to make changes in them and their lives according to His will.”
