Praying Without Ceasing; How Motherhood Has Grown My Understanding

At my church this weekend we wrapped up the book of 1 Thessalonians and our pastor called this portion of scripture at the end of chapter 5 as a check up for your soul. I felt that to my core, there often are times where I am nailing my to-do list and getting things done, and I feel great about it. Maintaining our home, running a small business, staying on top of content, laundry, dishes, cooking, school pickup and drop off… it is a lot! There are other times when it can make me feel so so drained, and I will then start to feel as if I am doing a poor job at it all because I get bogged down. It is hard to keep up with everything and feel like I am doing well at times. I have to say that with fall break officially wrapped up and thinking about this holiday season coming up, this is one of those times where I am feeling a bit bogged down. I am trying to decide what I should be saying “no” to so that I can say “yes” to the right things. When our pastor went through the last verses in chapter 5 of 1 Thessalonians and I thought about my “soul check up”; it made me realize that I need to slow down so that I do not get burnt out that I have a hard time bouncing back. 

These three verses hold so much truth and it really hit me like ton of bricks. When I am busy and have a lot to do, then feel like I am doing a poor job and not keeping up, I can get in a mode of grumbling. At the end of the day I always feel grateful for the many blessings that God has poured on me, what I can struggle with is acting grateful in the moment. I can focus on all of the tasks at hand which make me feel overwhelmed and like I have to move at a million miles an hour to get it done, rather than slowing down to enjoy the process. If I rush through cooking a meal, I do not slow down to pray over the meal or invite my kids to cook with me. If I am rushing through cleaning up to “just get it done” I am not having my kids join me, which is often fun. When we do it together I like to highlight how teamwork always makes things easier, or we turn it into a game like freeze clean. This is basically cleaning toys up and then randomly yelling “FREEZE!” and everyone stops where they are for a moment, then unfreeze and clean more.  But there is always a reason to rejoice in the circumstances and give thanks. Even on a hard day I am so blessed by God with beautiful children, a loving husband and a roof over our heads. In times like today, especially, with wars happening around our world and people living in fear, I do not want to take that for granted. 

“Praying without ceasing” is where I would like to focus todays post though, because as a busy mom this will change a lot as the weeks, months or years go by! I grew up thinking that prayer meant saying a specific prayer at a specific time. You prayed to different saints for different things or you would pray the rosary. Repentance to God included talking to a priest, so it took me a long time to “un learn” those habits. It was not until I was an adult and had given my heart to Jesus that I understood prayer to be having a conversation with God. In the book of Matthew, Jesus tell us to pray to our Father. He is reminding us that God is our Father and like any good Father, he wants us to talk to him and he will listen. Prayer does not have to look a “certain way” for him to hear us or answer our prayers. And God will always answer our prayers, it may not be the way we want him to, or at the time that we want him to, but he always does answer in his perfect time and way. What we need to do is trust that he knows what is best and at the best time. 

At my Bible study table, many young moms tell me that they use the time spent nursing their baby to read the Bible or pray, which I think is so wonderful. I am a big fan of the Bible app by YouVersion. You can find different reading plans that lead you through the whole bible, certain books of the Bible or a specific topic. Then you can even have the app read to you! You don’t have to be holding your phone or a physical Bible but have a voice reading the scripture to you, what a beautiful blessing to have in our technology! As a mom with littles, praying without ceasing could be quick prayers, they can be the ones of “Jesus, I need your help!” I would even suggest doing that out loud so that your little ones hear you, there have been times where one of my kids is melting down that I sit on the floor and pull them in my lap and start praying out loud. And these are not prayers that say “please help my child who is screaming and throwing a fit” but more a prayer that invites the Holy Spirit into our room, I pray to invite Jesus into our hearts and help our home and bodies feel more calm and peaceful. I do not want to say passive aggressive prayers that are calling out the bad behavior but saying prayers that invite Jesus into our presence to calm us down. 

Our two older kids are old enough to read and write now so I am able to invite them into my Bible study time in an easier manner. I try to wake up and go downstairs to read my Bible and journal out prayers before all of the kids wake up, there is often a morning where our son, Jack comes down and asks to join me. I tell him that I am reading my Bible and let him know that if he is coming down stairs he can read his own Bible or play quietly; but the expectation is that we are being quiet. Sometimes he joins me and will ask what I am writing down or reading and then he does the same. Other times he plays quietly, but I love the mornings when we read our Bibles at the same time and then he tells me about what he read. 

Now here is how I pray the most, I say quick prayers throughout the day, all day long. For a very long time I did not understand the idea of “praying without ceasing” probably because I did not fully understand that prayer is having a conversation with God, my father. And that conversation can be ongoing as I am doing my every day tasks. It does not need to be me sitting down in a quiet environment with my Bible and journaling prayers out, it can be while driving in the car or doing dishes; it can be while playing with my kids or folding laundry. While I drive I am often saying prayers in my head, if someone pops into my brain, I quickly say a prayer for them. Sometimes I will message them later letting them know that the Holy Spirit put them on my heart, other times I keep it to myself. But once I started doing that, I felt like I started to better understand the idea of praying without ceasing. It’s asking God to bless the food you are making, asking God to watch over your kids as you drop them off at school. Now don’t judge me for this one, but when one of my girls is out of sorts or just having a tough day, I will then pray for their future spouse. I pray that whomever God has for their future husbands knows and loves Him and that they allow the grace God gives to us, to flow to my girls when they are women and struggling with the same things I struggle with today. I pray that all of my children find Godly spouses who will serve the Lord with them. 

Being a busy mom has given me the ability to understand praying without ceasing in a way that I did not before also because I do not always have tons of time for prayer. I have more emergent prayers in my days now than I did before, I will feel like I am on the brink of melting down myself and remember to take a deep breath and ask the Holy Spirit to fill me up so that the fruits of the spirit are what pour out rather than my fleshly reaction. I still prioritize more structured prayer time, I love having my journal where I keep track of prayers asked and prayers answered. But I am also okay with knowing that I can pray whenever I want and how feels best in that moment; whether it be in my head, out loud or written down. Once I started praying in those different ways, without ceasing, I started to feel the Holy Spirit helping me each day in a much stronger way. 

My prayer as I write this is that you, mama, find comfort in knowing that you can talk to God whenever you want and He is always listening. He is always there to guide you and is always with you. Whether you are sitting down with all of your favorite Bible study tools (I shared mine in my last post) or whether it’s a quick cry of “Help!” the Holy Spirit will show up and guide you in your day.