As a young, single girl, I prayed a lot and I had a very close and personal relationship with God. I always set aside a chunk of time daily, usually in the evenings when I would attend evening service in the church which was very close to my house. After that, I would still pray in the privacy of my room, speaking long sincere prayers for me, family, friends, strangers, hospital patients and all. Read this post, 20[+…] Random Facts about Me!.
I would also make good on my promise to pray for others when they asked me to.
How time has changed! *Sighs Exasperatedly*
Now, three kids and a job down the line and I can hardly squeeze out stretches of uninterrupted prayer time. But I still pray though, I use every little opportunity I get to do what I would call spontaneous prayers- short mind prayers while walking, cooking, eating, completing a random task at work or another, just name it!
On week days, we have our morning prayers in the car on our way to school. We still have our week day night prayers, though they are not as lengthy as our week end prayers which are more structured. We have more time on our hands during the week end and as would be expected, we spend more quality time during our prayer sessions, from reading the bible and sharing the message on our devotionals to praise and worship sessions. We also have occasional midnight prayer sessions.
So if you are like me and you’ve found out that long, leisurely prayers are a thing of the past, then this post is for you.
I raised this issue with a few mum friends of mine and one of them, despite her busy schedule, decided to share her personal experience on the blog. She is a pharmacist based in the UK and an amazing mum to two wonderful boys.
Below is an account of her prayer life schedule;
“I struggle with praying and reading my Bible the way I want to. Like proper studying the Bible like I study for exams and spending that quality time I know I should spend with God.
I have always struggled with that. I wake up 6:15 and first thing I do is open my Bible app and read my devotionals. The devotionals are very short, if not, then I’m reading the bible verse for everyday and then read the word for today, say my daily Godfessions using the Godfession app, a short prayer later on and start my day.
I do midnight prayers from 12 to 1/1:30am. It’s bad that I only do it when I need something from God but the time to do it is incredibly difficult for me. So I carry this guilt in me that I am not praying and studying my Bible as much as I should.
There’s this lady, Pastor Tolu Ijogun who does Wednesday prayers for one hour, 10 to 11pm every Wednesday on IG live. I join sometimes. She has addressed the issue of combining a busy lifestyle and spending time with God. She said she struggles at times but she believes the most important thing is always being in the presence of God. She said when she can’t pray or read her Bible; she listens to gospel music and worships God.
However, that shouldn’t replace prayers completely. I pray I find that balance really because it’s such a struggle honestly. And God speaks to me through His words. For my own good, I need to study the Bible as much as I can, if not I get messed up and lose track”
If she can make it work even with her busy schedule, I definitely can put in more effort as well. Hope these suggestions would be able to help you get those prayers in, even during a busy day of being a working mama.
XOXO,
Yours Truly.
