Life is actually really hard and uncertain right now. Sometimes the best thing I can do is appreciate the little treasures that accompany each hardship. There is a hole in our garage door. Sometimes little faces pop into the hole and make me wonder if I will miss it when it is fixed.
For about a year and a half I have had a regular weekly hour of adoration at out church. Adoration is when the consecrated host of Jesus Christ is exposed for parishioners to reverently adore him in prayer and worship.
Initially the hour was spent with all of my children together as I was pregnant with our sixth child. There were some growing pains as I learned to find peace even when they were not peaceful. Some days I repeatedly prayed, “Jesus help me. Jesus I surrender myself to you. Jesus help me to love my children well in this moment.” And when I say I repeated that type of prayer, I mean I repeated it over and over again for nearly the entire hour. But there was so much grace too. I began to see certain knee jerk reactions for what they were: knee jerk reactions and not necessarily helpful solutions. These hours were not perfectly quiet, but I fully believe they were saving my life during that season. They helped me to direct my focus to God’s grace and strength rather than my own weakness and short comings.
Last summer I began to have the opportunity to take just one child at a time with me. These hours are usually quieter and more peaceful and I am grateful for the opportunity to share Jesus with my children and have quality time with them before and after adoration in which we can talk. In this current season of life, the extra quiet is very helpful and I feel like each child is learning the value of spending time with Jesus in a more direct and personal way outside of our families practices of prayer and church attendance.
Many days, this hour is the only one I get to spend writing in my journal and pouring my heart out to God with almost no interruptions. It is saving my sanity and helping me to see the rest of my responsibilities with greater clarity and through the lens of how I can surrender them to God. I often have really important perspective shifts or insights or ideas that help me serve our family more effectively.
For a couple years now, I’ve been setting up my desk and some desks for the kids on the porch so that we can enjoy the fresh air and our beautiful yard while we work on a bit of schoolwork or other office(y) related tasks. It’s one of my favorite ways to still get things done that I would likely otherwise ignore because this season won’t keep! I regularly shift furniture around or create new little havens to enjoy the various seasons of life. I think it is one of the things that sets me up to enjoy the beautiful moments more. It’s like placing my crystal in the window that actually gets sunlight vs. leaving it in one where the sun never quite catches anymore because leaves are now blocking the sun.
This morning, I am working on embracing quality time with my children while I do what I need or want to do. My four year old, Jack, kept asking to sit in my lap and I kept telling him no because I was doing something. Then I felt a quiet little voice ask, “but why can’t you do both?” So, I had him go get a blanket and then sit in between my legs (so his boney little butt wouldn’t dig into me) and he and I have been working on my website together.
Lord, please help me to recognize the moments when sharing a seat with my child will fill both of our cups. Thank you for this moment of clarity and joy.
Hanging On….
I wonder how often in life, I’m just hanging on desperately trying not to fall, but I’m actually less than a leg span from the ground.
