The Power of a Mother’s Prayer

Dannah Gresh: Stephen Kendrick says his parents were prayer warriors.

Stephen Kendrick: They wouldn’t pray just small prayers, but they believed that God could provide, He could protect, He could do things. So, there was a sense of, “The Lord is able to carry us through this and provide what we need.”

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of Adorned: Living Out the Beauty of the Gospel Together, for February 28, 2025. I’m Dannah Gresh.

All month here on Revive Our Hearts we’ve been focusing on the topic of prayer. In the series, “My Personal Petitions,” Nancy talked about praying for our own hearts. Then we studied the story of Hannah, the prophet Samuel’s mother, and how she prayed for a son. If you missed any of those programs, go to ReviveOurHearts.com to listen to them. Or you’ll find them on the Revive Our Hearts app.

Well, we’re not done yet! Nancy, can you fill us in on what we’re hearing today?

Nancy: We’re going to focus on the power of a mother’s prayer. You’ve may have heard about the brothers Alex and Stephen Kendrick who are the producers and directors of movies like: Facing the Giants, Fireproof, Overcomer, and War Room. Today, we’ll hear about an unsung hero in the lives of those brothers. I first heard this story from Stephen Kendrick as he shared about his mom, Rhonwyn Kendrick, and how God had used her prayers in his life.

Our team traveled to Mrs. Kendrick’s home some time ago and filmed a moving video of this story. You can see that video at ReviveOurHearts.com. As you listen to these next few minutes, I hope you’ll consider the ways that your prayers could help change the world.

Dannah: On April 13, 2013, Rhonwyn Kendrick wrote a very specific prayer on a sticky note. She wrote it down but didn’t tell anybody. Now, remember the sticky note, because you’ll hear about it again.

She planted that sticky note in her Bible, in faith that—if it were God’s will—He would bring the request about.

A lot of Mrs. Kendrick’s life is spent planting seeds in faith that something beautiful will grow. That’s true for prayers—and it’s also true for literal seeds.

Rhonwyn Kendrick: I love being outdoors. I guess it’s part of growing up on the farm . . . planting something and then just watching it grow.

Dannah: This is Rhonwyn Kendrick’s son, Stephen Kendrick. 

Stephen Kendrick: You can take the girl off of the farm, but you can’t take the farm out of the girl. She goes out and works outside all the time.

Mrs. Kendrick: For the spring garden, we planted green beans . . .

Stephen: It’s therapy for her.

Mrs. Kendrick:. . . sweet potatoes . . .

Stephen: It’s a joy for her . . .

Mrs. Kendrick: . . . squash . . .

Stephen:. . . to get her hands dirty and see something bloom.

Mrs. Kendrick:. . . zucchini . . .

Stephen: She has transformed her back yard from an ugly backyard into something very beautiful over the years.

Mrs. Kendrick: Last year I tried corn. That didn’t work!

Dannah: Mrs. Kendrick not only cultivates her garden every day. She also cultivates a close relationship with the Lord.

Mrs. Kendrick: In the mornings I like to take my Bible and I go to my kitchen table. I put my Bible on the table, and I stand. If I stand, I don’t doze off. And I just start praying.

Dannah: Mrs. Kendrick uses a lot of Scripture when she prays.

Mrs. Kendrick: In the mornings I like to read Psalm 23: “The Lord is [our] Shepherd, [we] shall not want . . .” And then, Psalm 25: “Show [us] Your ways, O Lord; teach [us] Your plans” (v. 4). Deuteronomy 28: “We’re blessed in the city, blessed in the field; blessed is the fruit of our body . . .” (vv. 3–4 paraphrased).

The verses in Psalm 34: “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. . . . They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing” (vv. 1, 10). Psalm 37: “Delight thyselves in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart” (v. 1).

“This is the day the Lord hath made, we will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). Isaiah 54: “All of your children shall be taught of the Lord” (v. 13). I have quoted this for years. Galatians 3: “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law” (v. 13). Psalm 91: “[We] will say of the Lord, He is our refuge . . . He covers [us] with his feathers, and under his wings [do we] trust” (vv. 2, 4).

Dannah: At a young age, Mrs. Kendrick discovered the power of prayer in a very dramatic way. 

Mrs. Kendrick: I was six years old; this was on April 1, 1948.

Stephen: A tornado came, and it hit their property where there was a farm.

Mrs. Kendrick: I remember Mother taking my sister Carol and my sister Bonnie and me, and she put us under the kitchen table.

Stephen: She says she remembers looking up and watching her mother cry out to God!

Mrs. Kendrick: I remember her just crying out to the Lord; she was just crying at the top of her voice, asking the Lord to protect us! 

Stephen: A few minutes later, the sound died down. They walked outside, and all around them there was devastation!

Mrs. Kendrick: The roof to our barn, which was next to the house, was blown off.

Stephen: And they never found that roof!

Mrs. Kendrick: Two huge oak trees in front of our house, across the highway, had fallen down.

Stephen: Power lines were down in the front yard. The church across the street was rocked off of its foundation, but their house was left intact—and preserved.

Mrs. Kendrick: Our house was not touched! I think I learned from that that we need to be able to call on God anytime, in any circumstance, and that God is near, that He loves us. I saw a very quick answer to prayer!

Dannah: When Rhonwyn married Larry Kendrick and began a family, prayer was a big part of their daily lives.

Mrs. Kendrick: Before our children were born, my husband and I prayed over them, that the Lord would have His will, His way with them.

Stephen: We heard the Word of God, growing up. Some of it we would memorize in Sunday school, some of it was at Christian school that we went to in our later years, and then at home we were hearing God’s Word quoted.

Our mom often would say, “Our children will be taught of the Lord; and great will be the peace of our children. No weapon that is formed against them shall prosper, but their righteousness is of the Lord. . .and whatever they do will prosper, for they will be like trees planted by the rivers of water” (see Isa. 54:13 and 17, and Psalm 1:3).

They would just incorporate Scripture into their prayers over our lives.

Dannah: Stephen Kendrick remembers the way his mom used to pray for him and his brothers before school.

Stephen: We heard Psalm 91 just about every day, it seemed, going to school, growing up. We would be in the car and she would make it personal. When Mom would personalize the chapter, she would say, “We dwell in the secret place of the most High: we shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. We will say of the Lord, He is our refuge, our fortress: our God; in Him will we trust. Surely he shall deliver us from the snare of the fowler, from the noisome pestilence. He will cover us with His feathers; under His wings we will trust” (see Psalm 91:1–4).

And then, she would go through the whole chapter, as we’re in the car: “Only with our eyes will we behold and see the reward of the wicked. A thousand may fall at our side, ten thousand at our right hand; but it will not happen to us” (see Psalm 91:7–8).

At the end of the passage it talks about the Lord’s blessing and protection over our family. Having sons caused my mom to pray for protection a lot. She would pray Psalm 91 protection over us as we would be out in the woods—swinging on vines, trying to be Indiana Jones as kids.

A mom could look at her children saying, “I’m trying to protect them and keep them safe”—but your prayers will go with them. There were many times where we almost died as kids, growing up—runnin’ the car out into the street, driving it as a three-year-old. I backed the car out in the street two different times.

Over the years, the things that we have experienced . . . But Mom was always praying for us behind the scenes, asking the Lord to put His angels’ charge over us and keep us safe. And so you may be looking at your kids thinking, I’m so worried or fearful about them because I can’t always be with them wherever they go.

Well, the Lord is with them and His guardian angels can be charge over them. When you pray for their protection, they’re in the Lord’s hands, and you can rest at night knowing that He has a better plan than you do for their lives.

Mom and Dad made prayer a part of everything they did. We’re not only praying before meals, but we’re praying before major decisions. One thing that we would see in our parents was, they wouldn’t hold back in their prayer lives.

They wouldn’t pray just small prayers, but they believed that God could provide, He could protect, He could do things. So, there was a sense of, “The Lord is able to carry us through this and provide what we need.”

Dannah: Today, all three of the Kendrick brothers—Shannon, Alex, and Stephen—are involved in filmmaking. Their films include Fireproof, Courageous, and The Forge. On the set of each film prayer has been a crucial part of their process.

Stephen: All the films that we have produced have really been a string of one answered prayer after another. We’re praying as we’re writing. We haven’t had the script writing training so we’re laying it before the Lord, saying, “Would You enable us to develop these characters?”

As we’re casting, we’re praying over the casting process. Every day on set, we’ll have a prayer team be part of that: “We’re dedicating today to the Lord.” And then, we have prayer warriors that we will email each week and say, “Here’s how you can pray for us; here’s what’s coming up.”

We have seen again, consistently, that when we bathe things in prayer, when we fight our battles in prayer first, the Lord is faithful to answer those.

Dannah: Their 2015 film, War Room, went to number one at the box office. It was specifically about prayer.

Stephen: We didn’t know what was going to happen with it, but War Room was more successful, the impact has been even more far-reaching than the other films. We can see now that the timing was perfect for a call to prayer to the Church!

Dannah: War Room shows the relationship between a younger woman learning how to pray from her mentor—Miss Clara.

Stephen: I think the character, Miss Clara, was the combination of many godly elderly women that we’ve known over the years, and our mother is definitely one of those who helped inspire that character. Oftentimes, we’ll call and we’ll say, “Mom, here’s what’s going on. Here’s how we need your prayer support.”

As we’re travelling, as we’re working on production, she’s praying for us—and we consistently see the rewards of that. You can sense sometimes, “There’s somebody who’s been praying for me.” I am so grateful for a praying mom!

Dannah: Over the years, as her sons gained a national platform to speak about the Lord, Mrs. Kendrick has preferred to stay at home. She’s been spending her time caring for her husband, who’s been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, praying for hours in her kitchen, and—of course—she works in her garden!

Stephen: One thing that we saw happen, though, is she would be out there working hard by herself—she’d be carrying buckets, and she’s in her seventies! She'd carrying fertilizer and those kind of things.

We would say, “Mom, you need to be really careful! If something happened to you, since you take care of Dad, you know, it could be tough on everybody! We want you to be safe and to be healthy, and to be in a good place.”

I woke up on a Saturday morning, the day of her birthday, and I sat up in bed, and I had this strong feeling that I needed to go buy Mom a golf cart. So, I called my brothers and my dad and I said, “A golf cart’s thousands of dollars. What if we all pooled our money together and got her a golf cart?”

And they all said, “Yes, let’s do it!”

Dannah: So we all went over to Mom’s house—all nineteen grandchildren were over there—Mom and Dad were there. We said, “Mom, we have a birthday gift to give to you.” So we took her outside, we said, “We need you to close your eyes,” and we pulled this golf cart around.

Mrs. Kendrick: In just a couple minutes he said, “You can open your eyes.”

Stephen: She opened her eyes and then . . . Mom started to cry!

Mrs. Kendrick: He had driven up in a red golf cart. I looked at it, and it was hard to believe.

Stephen: She said, “I just can’t believe it! I can’t believe it!”

Dannah: Now, do you remember the prayer that Mrs. Kendrick wrote on that sticky note I told you about it earlier in the program? She had written it down about a week before her birthday. When she received the golf cart, she went and got that note out of her Bible and read it to the family.

Stephen: And it said, “Dear Heavenly Father . . .”

Mrs. Kendrick: ". . . based on John 16:23, I ask for a golf cart for my birthday. I ask for a golf cart in excellent condition, a beautiful golf cart that I will love. So I’m asking You, Lord, if you would give me—for my birthday—a golf cart.”

Stephen: She had prayed that and written it down and not told anybody. It was just between her and the Lord. We were so excited! We brought all the kids around and we said, “Listen to this! Mama K was praying for a golf cart for her birthday. She didn’t tell anybody, and this morning, the Lord prompted us to go buy her a golf cart!”

God’s timing is always up to Him when it comes to prayer. There are things that we would pray for and the Lord answers right away. There are some times when it’s like planting a seed, when you pray and you wait and nothing happens for a while.

It may be months, years, decades down the road before the Lord decides to answer that prayer in His perfect timing.

Alex and I had been praying for the Lord to be glorified through our lives; our parents were praying over us as we were growing up. He had a vision for making Christian movies one day—a dream that he wanted to do that. But it was over a decade later, after he was praying, before the Lord answered that prayer and enabled us to make Christian films.

When we look back now, we weren’t ready when we were young to do that. But God’s timing is perfect, and we can see that all the years of ministry, serving in the local church, studying the Word of God was helping to prepare us to be able to make movies that hopefully demonstrate biblical accuracy but also a sense of a love towards God and a fear of the Lord.

I would say to young moms that if you know Jesus and you will get right with Him and be in a daily abiding relationship with Him, you are positioned through Christ to approach your heavenly Father with boldness and with freedom. 

Ask for the moon for your children. Ask the Lord to do more than you can ask or imagine. Whatever is in your heart, lay that before the Lord. Pray for their protection, pray for wisdom. And find Scriptures that you can stand on, and pray those before the Lord.

Just keep knocking on heaven’s door with those requests. God loves your children more than you do, and He will be with them throughout their lives, beyond your influence and beyond your control. But your prayers will go with them.

The Lord can do wonderful, mighty things through your kids, if you will trust the Lord with them. I am so grateful for a praying mom! We don’t deserve it. We don’t deserve all that she has done for us, but we are grateful for her.

Oftentimes we will call and we’ll say, “Mom, here’s what’s going on. Here’s how we need your prayer support.” Or, "Will you pray for our protection in this situation?”—and she will. We’re very grateful for what God has done through her!

I believe the enemy is attacking in a greater degree. Evil is upon our generation. We cannot rely upon our best efforts or just the human counsel that we have around us. We have to be relying completely upon the Lord for our children and for our grandchildren—watching God take them and do with them more than we could ever imagine or do on our own.

Dannah: You’ve been hearing the story of one specific answer to prayer, but what’s striking when you get to know Mrs. Kendrick is that this kind of thing happens all the time. She has a lot of stories of answered prayer, just like this golf cart.

The golf cart story just illustrates a bigger principle: that God hears our prayers. Mrs. Kendrick and Stephen both realize that we need people who will be crying out in prayer like never before!

Mrs. Kendrick: I believe that God wants women to pray over their homes, pray over their husbands, to pray over their children every day—that God will have His way, will have His will with us.

Stephen: When we look at our country, we look at how dark our world is right now—how the Church, with broken wings, is sick in so many ways—it is “for such a time as this” that I believe the Holy Spirit is calling people—and calling women—back to prayer . . . for their husbands, for their children, just like our mom has done for our father and for us over the years.

My prayer is that God will grant repentance to the Church across the nation and that as believers are praying, the Holy Spirit will move in, in power, and change hearts and shift the course of our country!

Mrs. Kendrick: I believe we need to cry out to the Lord!

Believers right now need to be humbling themselves and seeking the Lord, crying out to Him in prayer, and I believe that we’re going to see a great harvest in our generation.

Dannah: Well, we’ve been hearing about the power of a mother’s prayer from film producer Stephen Kendrick and his mom, Rhonwyn Kendrick. Nancy, I think that story can encourage us in a few different ways.

Nancy: For sure, it reminds us that we have a God who actually listens to our prayers. He cares about a mom who needs a golf cart to get around her property.

Dannah, the other thing I'm reminded about in this testimony is that each of us can go to the throne of God on behalf of others just as Rhondwyn Kendrick did for her children. If you have children or grandchildren, you can do just what she’s done by lifting them up to God in prayer.

Dannah, as I've known you over the years I've seen you as a praying mom—praying for your children and now for those precious grandchildren God has given you.

Dannah: It is my great joy. And even if you don’t have your own children, you can still be crying out the Lord for the next generation. Nancy, I've seen you do that so beautifully. You model that for all of us.

Nancy: Thank you, Dannah. Our prayer is that the Lord will raise up thousands of women—whether they have their own children or not—women just like Mrs. Kendrick, who will consistently, fervently cry out to the Lord to revive His Church and to bring about a spiritual awakening in our day, which we so desperately need!

Dannah: Yes. And pray for the physical and spiritual needs of your family and your community.

Nancy: Even as we talking here Dannah, I'm reminded of a stanza of the great hymn by John Newton, the slave trader turned author of "Amazing Grace," as he wrote:

Thou art coming to a King,
Large petitions with thee bring.
For His grace and power are such,
None can ever ask too much.

Here's the thing, when we pray, we're talking to the very same God who answered Rhonwyn Kendrick's prayer. So let's ask Him to meet our needs and the needs of our world in a big way in these days. He's a big God!

Dannah: He is! And often it helps to bring those large petitions to the King in the company of others. You can ask others to pray with you, too. That’s the thinking behind our special web page ReviveOurHearts.com/prayer. You can write your large petition there, and then our team will come alongside you and pray for it, too. I hope you’ll try it out. ReviveOurHearts.com/prayer.

Also, would you pray and ask God to meet the needs of Revive Our Hearts? We know that it’s God who provides all we need to keep the message of freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ going out to women everywhere. Your prayers for us mean so much!

As you pray for us, would you also consider supporting us financially? If you aren’t able to right now, we understand. We’re so grateful for your prayers. But if the Lord is leading you to make a gift, do that at ReviveOurHearts.com. Or, call us at 1-800-569-5959.

When you give today, we’ll send you the “My Personal Petitions” prayer journal we’ve been talking about all month, along with the bookmark that goes with it. Just ask for it when you contact us to make a donation.

Before we end today’s program, let’s listen to a few minutes of a message Stephen Kendrick gave at a recent True Woman conference. He was talking again about the importance of prayer. Here’s Stephen.

Stephen: Look at the great people in the Old Testament—they were always prayer warriors. You look at Jesus’ life. In all of His busyness, He would either get up early to pray or stay up late to pray or send the crowd away to pray. You’re not busier than Jesus was, but He would make sure that prayer was a priority. It was the only thing His disciples asked Him to teach them how to do—it was to pray.

If you look at the Sermon on the Mount, He’s training them on how to pray. He’s saying, “God wants you to pray. He answers prayer. He’s commanding you to pray. Ask and you shall receive. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you.”

The analogy in Scripture of prayer is not an employer to an employee, or even a master to a servant. It’s of a father to his children. Every time Jesus would talk about prayer, He would say, “I want you to think of God as your Father: a loving, good Father who cares about you and wants to give you good things.”

He says, “I want you to ask for good things, because your Father in heaven wants to give you those good things.” So Jesus is challenging His disciples, “Prioritize prayer. Pray instead of fainting.” He goes into the temple: “You’re making the temple about things other than prayer. My house shall be called ‘a house of prayer!’”

If you look in the New Testament, the church prioritized prayer. The Holy Spirit came. It says, “They devoted themselves to prayer,” as a New Testament church. As a result of prayer, everything else took on more power to it.

The preaching is powerful when there’s a praying church behind the pastor praying for him. The programs of the church are effective when there’s a praying people behind the programs. The promotional efforts . . . Everything you’re doing in your church, prayer is the wind in the sails of those things. If you can prioritize prayer first, like the Scriptures say, everything else in your church will reap the benefits of that.

What do we see in 1 Timothy 2:1? “First of all, let there be prayers, petitions, supplication, thanksgiving for all men.” Let that be first in priority.

What did the apostles say (Acts 6)? “Okay, we have these women who are upset, complaining, over here—these widows who are being neglected. Let’s set up some people to serve them and meet their needs, but let us keep prioritizing prayer and the ministry of the Word.”

You read in Romans 12:12, spoken to us as believers, “Devote yourselves to prayer.” Colossians 4:2, “Devote yourselves to prayer.” So it’s this constant message throughout Scripture, throughout Christian history. The greatest missionaries always devoted themselves to prayer.

Before the Great Awakenings, the Lord would stir up His Church. They would become burdened about the toxic condition of the culture, and the lukewarmness that was in the Church, and they would be so burdened that God would call them to their knees and they would begin to pray.

It wasn’t just a sermon series over a weekend. The Lord would call them to long-term devotion to prayer. He would say, “Let’s prioritize God Himself, and prayer, above any of the works of men.” I believe He’s doing that right now in our country, and I believe He’s doing that in the body of Christ all over the world!

We saw with War Room. In Mexico there were twelve elderly women who went to see the movie, and then they started a twenty-four-hour prayer network in their city.

In Argentina, there are churches that have been meeting, and they’ve been praying. Pastors across America have been preaching on the priority of prayer. Seventy-one churches in Ohio recently met together for a prayer “boot camp,” saying, “We need to train our people in prayer.”

There’s a Texas prison that has focused in on prayer, and in this one unit in the prison . . . By the way, across America the recidivism rate for prisoners is about seventy percent. (That means that, when they get out, about seventy percent end up back in prison.)

But in this one unit in Texas, prisoners have begun to pray for one another, and the recidivism in that specific unit has dropped down to seven percent! Ninety-three percent are staying out of prison because they’re praying for one another! (applause)

E.M. Bounds said, “Prayer moves the hand that moves the world.” It can accomplish what God can accomplish. There is no greater privilege for you and I—anyone—to be able to personally talk to God—and speak into the ears of the Almighty. It’s a beautiful, mysterious, jaw-dropping opportunity that we have every day.

Dannah: That’s Stephen Kendrick with a challenge to make prayer your first priority.

Well, recently on this program, we’ve learned about two faithful women: Hannah from the Bible, and a modern-day prayer warrior, Rhonwyn Kendrick. Next week, we’ll begin studying the life of another woman used mightily by God, Esther. I hope you’re able to worship in your church this weekend, then be back Monday for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

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