Ellie loves to sit next to me while I pray in the mornings. She cuddles, squirms, occasionally prays herself, and interrupts with lots of questions and comments. She also loves to have me read aloud whatever I'm reading in my Bible (which is sometimes not that easy - I'm currently in Isaiah, which isn't bad, but we skip some of the destruction paragraphs!). It's not unusual for Ellie to work three devotional times into her day: Isaac's early in the morning, mine a little later, and her own when we put her to bed.
It's much harder to keep my focus and concentration when I have my quiet time with her, but these are the teaching moments that I treasure as well. You can't really tell a child that you don't want to read her the Bible!
I remember in high school a friend's dad used to have his devotional time in the early morning before his family woke up. One of his sons started getting up and joining him, and eventually several more of his kids joined him. The dad joked that he had to keep getting up earlier and earlier to get his own time with God in!
Unless God specifically tells me to start waking up before Ellie to spend time with Him, I'm not willing to give up my precious, hard-fought sleep. So I guess I'll continue to pray and study with Ellie and believe that God understands our best efforts at different times in our lives.
In a way, I'm looking forward to private nighttime nursings and the time I'll get in with God then. Not enough to wake up in the middle of the night without a crying baby as stimulus, but still... Might as well look on the bright side!
Do any of you parents have advice or tips on how to concentrate on God when your children are small?
3 comments:
The only thing I can say is that ir's darn near impossible! I do think it's great that you read together with Ellie....even though you aren't doing your devotionals alone I'm sure God is showing/teaching you something when you're with her. My best advice for alone time is in the evening after she's gone to bed. Yeah you're tired but it's better than nothing.
I don't set a definite time in the day. I don't say, at such and such time each day I will pray. Instead, I find myself praying as I go about my day. As for Asha, we ready stories together and that is how she learns about G-d and our faith.
I have my "quiet time" when Seth takes his afternoon nap. When I have my daycare children here they also share the same schedule so it's a set in stone thing. I may spend some time in the Bible, sometime praying and of course a nap some days too, if I'm lucky. It is a struggle to know what is the right amount of time though - I want to know God better than I feel I do, but the times in the day with quiet are so few... There's no easy answers that I am sure of.
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