Some years ago, I told one of my adult daughters that she needed to take care of herself and not pour herself out to depletion (which she was doing).
“But Mom!” she protested. “All my life I have seen how you react to moms who talk about needing “me time”! I don’t want to be like that! I am just following your example.”
I explained to her that she had misunderstood – that there was a difference between a selfish “I need ‘me’ time” versus a healthy caring for one’s basic needs. One can’t give out of emptiness.
We have spiritual, physical, emotional, social, mental needs, and if we are married, we have marital needs as well.
In the following blog posts I will deal with some of those needs, but right now I will address our spiritual needs.
We have a great need to be refreshed by God’s Word every single day. We need to hear what He has to say and to communicate with Him. So many thoughts and ideas flood our mind, and these thoughts come from all over. Some of these thoughts are overwhelming. Many of these thoughts and ideas aren’t true or right. We need God’s Word to speak to us.
Truth. So important.
How does a busy homeschooling mom find the time to read God’s Word daily? Or what about the sleep-deprived Mom of many young children, who opens her Bible and unintentionally zones out. #personalexperience!
Here are some practical tips:
Decide that reading the Bible will be a priority for your morning, that you won’t look at your phone or computer until you have read your Bible. Get to it as soon as you can – if you wake up before the children, great – read it then. If your children scoot to your side the second you budge out of bed (as mine did when they were young), then let them sit in the bed with you, or go to the living room with them, and read your Bible with them in your lap or while they are playing.
Do you read a chapter and are so sleepy or are thinking about other things that you haven’t taken anything in? Then read it out loud.
And pray out loud. That takes care of a lot of those prayers that meld into wandering thoughts. Pray with thanksgiving. Pray for your family, for the day. For the things happening in the world. Turn what you have read into prayer.
As you begin your day in truth, connecting to your heavenly Father, you will have something to give. You will be in a better place to pour out to your family.
A steady diet of God’s Word is the start of spiritual health so that you may be a thriving Mom.
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