Prayer is Not for Moms

The goal was 6 am. I was about a year into having a child that slept through the night - perhaps a little less. And I thought, “now I am finally capable of getting out of bed before my fellow house dwellers to get in some quiet time with Jesus.”

At first my body said a flat-out, “Girl. No.” My eyes would flutter open at 7am as if the 4 alarms I’d set had been some figment of my imagination. But, slowly, I would awake at 6:57 for a while. Then eventually 6:42. And so on and so forth for weeks until, after copious attempts, 6 am or, at least, 6 am adjacent, was finally achieved. 

And something strange began to happen almost immediately. My toddler, who had a habit of sleeping until about 7 am, discarded said habit and fell in sync with the one I’d worked for weeks to lay hold of. 

If I woke up at 6:32, he’d be up at 6:46. 

If I got up at 6:14, his door would creep open at 6:19.

And, if I finally made it on time to my appointment with Jesus, there on my office floor with head bowed and knees ready, there he’d appear. Quietly climbing my prostrate body until he was comfortably perched atop, or snuggling up into some crevice he’d found in the crook of an arm underneath my blanket. He’d sit still, for a while. Until his sleepy mind woke up enough to begin a deluge of various requests all beginning with a high pitched, “ummm..mommy?”

And so, it went. 

“Dear Father in heaven…” “ummm…mommy?” 

“Lord forgive me…” “ummm..mommy?”

“Jesus I love y…” “umm…mommy?”

I was frustrated when I began. Here I was trying to wade deeper in the presence of the Lord through prayer but, instead, felt tethered to the shore by the tiny hands and not-so-sweet morning breath of a small human.

“Maybe,” I thought, “prayer is not for moms. Maybe prayer is for dads. At least until all children of the household are old enough to make their own peanut butter toast and reach the potty seat themselves.”

I lived with that conclusion for a while, thinking I’d discovered some unfortunate truth of motherhood that no one was talking about. Regardless of what I perceived to be a wild inconvenience to my personal time with my heavenly father, I persisted. And, then, discovered…

One nondescript day, my mother came over to our home and, as she and my son sat together playing legos or play-doh or embarking on some creative endeavor as they often do, they struck up a conversation. I do not remember how the subject matter was introduced, but I do remember one particularly affecting sentence my son spoke, “in the morning, I sit with my mommy while she prays.”

Now you may be thinking, “Yes. I know that information already. It is what you’ve been describing for paragraphs at this point.”

Reader, you are not wrong. 

What struck me, however, was not the fact of the matter but, rather, the implications thereof. For some reason it didn’t occur to me that sitting with me while I prayed was just as much of a staple in his morning as it was mine. He did not simply say, “I sit with my mommy.”   The activity of the time was also a part of his consideration in describing it. 

My son sits with me while I pray. Early in the morning, before the day begins. Prayer is a part of his morning. 

For now, my morning prayer time does not belong exclusively to me.

And, being that I serve a generational God, it makes sense that He would love me enough to grant me the gift of giving Him to the next one in the prevenient hours of our busy day. Although the interruptions are plenty, God is so good and so kind and so able that He still sees fit to move on my heart in the midst and weave in His words in the little moments in between them.

Prayer is for all of us who are training up our children in the way they should go at the expense of complete quiet and sustained stillness. 

Prayer is for my little one who, while he doesn’t necessarily understand all of what I’m saying and incessantly asks me about Paw Patrol while I attempt to commune with the Lord, will be well versed in speaking with his savior as he grows into his own relationship with Him. He doesn’t have to start to have a prayer time one day as we have started it. Together. Already.

It is not that prayer is not for moms because we are unable to have a moment to do so as we would prefer.

Prayer is for moms in every moment God so generously supplies. Seek the stillness, to be sure, just remember to surrender to its interference with equal grace, for generations sake.