But my current season isn’t dark so much as heavy and exhausting. It feels like a lot of medium-sized heavy things just keep coming: lack of sleep, family drama, health issues, medical bills... I've been running on fumes and at the same time, beating myself up for not having the discipline to sit down and dig deep. If I did it in that season, why can't I do it in this one?
But I'm starting to see that different seasons call for different spiritual disciplines. I'm making things even harder with unrealistic expectations. Because you see, I tend to think that if I'm pouring out THIS much into other people all day long, then I need to fill my glass up THIS MUCH every morning. I constantly berate myself for not waking up at 4am just to have an hour of quiet Bible study. I have early risers and non-sleepers and I don't know about you, but having to address kids before I'm fully awake leaves me feeling like I cannot catch up the rest of the day.
But the truth is, Jesus never said he was a pitcher of water. He didn't even come to give me a pitcher of water. He says he IS a well of water, ever springing. More than I could ever ask or imagine is available to me through him. I don't need to constantly be trying to fill up my pitcher in this season, because there aren't enough hours in the day. But I CAN take sips of that living water throughout my day. I can meditate on one verse, listen to one song, spend one minute breathing in and out with intention.
I don't know why it's taken me over 4 years to realize that different seasons call for different spiritual disciplines, but a book called Long Days of Small Things has been a breath of fresh air for me! Each chapter can stand alone, and it comes with three spiritual disciplines to focus on over the next few days. The clincher is that these are things you're already doing! Chapter 1 focuses on breathing, walking, and eating. Little sips of living water as you go about the most mundane things.
In the first chapter, Catherine McNiel says:
I stole away into an adult world for a weekend to attend a Christian conference. In the hot, crowded room, the speaker drove his point home with passion: If we have a genuine commitment to knowing God, we must spend at least an hour each day in silence and solitude.
There I was, ground to a halt once again. About to birth my third child in five years, I hadn't slept through the night or gone to the bathroom by myself anytime in recent memory. My physical body housed a tiny tenant; I was literally inseparable from this beloved person I nurtured. This simple suggestion of solitude-- one I would have recommended myself in a different season-- stole my breath away.
I didn't hear anything else at the conference, because these words reverberated through my ears and soul for weeks, drowning out everything else. The list of spiritual disciplines no longer feasible to me as a mother grows longer with each new child. And, of course, any thought of silence and solitude is a happy dream mostly forgotten.
No one tries to exclude mothers from the "spiritual life," but it happens regardless. I hear laments rising up in the hearts of mothers, mourning the losses that this season of nurturing unexpectedly brings: the impossibility of pursuing something soul-creative, something life-giving.
[...] And yet. Underneath my unwashed hair and sleepy eyes, the truth in undeniable: These days have been made out of miracles. Uniquely and utterly female miracles. Pregnancy, labor, delivery, newborn days, and nurturing growing children have taken me to places where only women and mothers can go. These fundamental experiences are inescapably feminine, not experienced by all women, but by only women. If our daily experiences are so entirely singular, why shouldn't our spiritual disciplines be uniquely suited to us as well?
So now, almost a decade into the most grueling journey of selfless giving and sacrifice I can imagine, my spirit is fighting back. There must be another path.
Children are consuming. They leave us with nothing left to give ourselves or anyone else. But this is the perfect training ground for our spirits, the very setting many disciplines are designed to produce! Our demanding, beloved children are what we create-- they are our spiritual path. What if we looked through new eyes and discovered that into our very life stages our Creator has placed impressions of himself, reflections of his strength and beauty, a spiritual path laid out just for us?
[...] Some religions, such as Hinduism and Buddhism, have a name for people in this predicament: householders. Recognizing that folks can't just up and leave their spouses or children, these religions give householders a different set of expectations. Rather than becoming meditating monks, studying under gurus and wandering alone through the forest, householders are asked, for now, simply to be faithful in responsibility.
Though we mamas may appear half-crazed, sleep-deprived, harried, and unkempt, our souls are being taught and sharpened and purified. I'm sure of it. We're not able to sit and ponder this, or even be aware of it most of the time. But soul refining is the work of struggle, sacrifice, discomfort, and perseverance. My three whirling dervishes take me to the end of myself on a daily basis, and I'm certain my soul will emerge stronger for it.
SO GOOD. Here are some resources for more refreshment, too.
Books
Long Days of Small Things
Loving the Little Years
Treasuring Christ When Your Hands are Full
Podcasts
Coffee + Crumbs Ep 28: Long Days of Small Things
Hello Mornings Ep 4: How to Begin and Build a Brilliant Morning
Risen Motherhood Ep 63: Growing in God's Word as a Mom of Little Ones
Music
This song is my anthem right now! I Asked the Lord sung by Indelible Grace
Satisfied (My favorite version is on iTunes and it's on the City Hymns album by Karl Digerness, but I couldn't find a video of it.)
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