FAMILY

'Regular' mom builds a million followers by posting a simple prayer on Facebook each night

New Franklin resident Becky Thompson writes about how she finds God while "filling sippy cups and wiping booties" — and hundreds of thousands of women are relating

Brad Schmitt
Nashville Tennessean

The blog post that changed everything was when mom Becky Thompson conceded she sometimes saw her husband only as the help.

"Ladies, there will come a time when your husband walks in the door and you do not turn around. You will be preoccupied with filling sippy cups and wiping booties," she wrote in early 2014.

" 'Glad you're home' will more properly translate, 'Thank God for two extra hands to help me.' And 'Praise the Lord I might get five minutes alone.' "

That post got shared more than 1 million times over four months. 

Her Facebook followers jumped from 1,000 to 10,000 overnight. She had 35,000 followers a few days later.

A 2005 picture of Becky and Jared Thompson in Cherokee, Okla., when they were dating

Now, six years later, Thompson — an Oklahoma native who recently moved to Franklin — has nearly 1 million followers for her Midnight Mom Devotional on Facebook. She and her mother, a pastor, Susan K. Pitts, post a new prayer for mothers there nightly.

In March, Thompson and her mom released a book of those prayers. It's on the USA TODAY bestsellers list.

The secret to their success? It's the vulnerability and authenticity Thompson showed where she said she sometimes sees her husband as her help.

Since then, their simple prayers have dealt with yelling at the kids, losing a parent, getting a divorce, and feelings of loneliness, desperation, fatigue and more.

Becky Thompson, seen here with her children Kolton, Kadence and Jaxton in Franklin on April 28, 2020, has built a large mom following on Facebook by posting a simple, relatable prayer each night  and writing several books.

The realness, and the way Thompson and her mom lean on faith through those challenges, is what connects deeply with so many women, according to fans and social media and religion experts.

"We cannot forget the relatable moments she shares like the flapping false lashes (one was falling off, but she could hardly fix it in that moment) when she’s the new mom on the block just trying to make new friends!" longtime fan Natasha Clark said in an email to The Tennessean. The 36-year-old mother of four lives near St. Louis.

"So, so relatable and real!" wrote Clark, a pastor's wife. "Real life moments explained in a way you can relate to, and bringing in how God is there in those very moments with us."

Kevin Trowbridge agrees.

"She's tapped into something deeply felt," said Trowbridge, a Belmont University associate professor of public relations and an expert on social media.

Thompson's career as a writer started in 2013.

Becky Thompson of Franklin has written several books about motherhood. Her latest, "Midnight Mom Devotional," written with her mother, is on the USA TODAY bestsellers list.

A stay-at-home mom with a 2-year-old and a 3-year-old, Thompson — who had always wanted to be a pastor's wife — found herself married to a welder who constantly traveled for work.

Feeling overwhelmed and invisible, Thompson launched a blog to do something for herself.

She started out writing about motherhood and fashion, gathering about 1,000 followers, and Thompson landed a few sponsors for her fashion posts. But she said she felt called to concentrate on motherhood, so she eventually dropped the fashion sponsors.

Her viral post in early 2014 launched her to a new level of popularity, and Thompson attracted the attention of book publishers.

Thompson wrote four books about motherhood, and continued to share online her personal stories — including widely distributed blog posts about her two miscarriages.

By 2015 she had 100,000 Facebook followers and a new idea — talking with mothers who were up during the night with crying babies or anxiety.

So Thompson created the midnight mom check-in, a way for those mothers to talk with each other online.

"In the middle of the night, that’s when fears seems louder and bigger, and fears bubble to the surface of a mom’s heart," Thompson said. "But they can’t call friends or other moms because they’re asleep."

Franklin resident Becky Thompson, right, has nearly 1 million followers for her Midnight Mom Devotional on Facebook. She and her mother, Pastor Susan K. Pitts, left, post a new prayer for mothers there nightly.

The overnight check-ins became so popular that Thompson started a separate Facebook page, the Midnight Mom Devotional, where she and her mother eventually started posting prayers each night.

Thompson asked her mother to help with the page because it became overwhelming to come up with a prayer each night and to respond to the hundreds of comments.

On April 24, 2018, her mother posted a prayer that would take the devotional page to nearly a million followers.

"Tonight we pray for the momma who is afraid she is ruining her kids. She tries to speak softly but sometimes she yells. She tries to cook nutritious meals but sometimes it's just frozen pizza," the prayer started.

After that prayer got shared countless times, the number of followers started growing by as many as 10,000 a day.

"Midnight Mom Devotional," written by new Franklin resident Becky Thompson and her mom, Susan K. Pitts, was released March 31.

Courtney Birbeck, 32, of the Los Angeles area, is a mother following Midnight Mom Devotional.

"With each post, I can normally relate, and often feel she is speaking directly to me," Birbeck said, "as if the prayer she wrote was written expressly for me." 

That's no surprise to Vanderbilt religion professor James Hudnut-Beumler, who said that Thompson is speaking for many moms.

"Most people struggle with prayer," he said, "and here’s a woman just like them who’s got it down."

Thompson and Pitts said they take their mission seriously.

The two text each other about 7:30 every night to start the conversation. Who are we praying for tonight?

"I have a prayer room in my house just to pray in. There are books I love, Bibles, devotionals; I spent my night praying for these women," said Pitts, who still lives in Oklahoma with her husband.

"This is not just something we write and walk away from. We spend hours with it. It’s our ministry to pray."

Reach Brad Schmitt at brad@tennessean.com or 615-259-8384 and on Twitter @bradschmitt.