Could there be a busier time than juggling two toddlers and a couple of part-time jobs? Yes, I found out the answer is definitely ‘YES!’ Demands and opportunities only multiply as our children grow older. In all the busyness, one of my biggest struggles as a mom has been finding time to be with God in quietness—quietness of house and spirit. I long for silence, the absence of demands, clarity of thought, and a full night’s rest in order to spend extended time with God in prayer and Bible study.
Crazy enough—those rare moments haven’t produced the only spiritually fruitful days as a mom in my life. Most significantly, it’s been the days when I have whole-heartedly yielded my life to God that stand out as the most spiritually meaningful and satisfying.
For example, one morning, when I was overwhelmed and exhausted, I pleaded with God in the car to renew my relationship with Him—so that my quiet times would be engaging and that I would be fully committed to Him. I yielded my heart, and my day.
It happened to be that day at lunch that my 5-year old son asked me what it meant to have Jesus in his heart: “Does Jesus crawl in?” Thankfully I saw the opportunity to discuss his spiritual question. He committed his life to Christ that day and made sure we invited his brother to do so as well.
It’s become a pattern. On the days I intentionally submit my will to God’s, neighbors call with prayer requests. Or I run into friends who are struggling and they ask for help. It happens on those days that my children ask spiritually poignant questions on the way to school. Am I blind to these spiritual opportunities every other day when I’m overtaken with schedules and demands the minute my alarm sounds, or do the opportunities not exist?
I believe God shows His love by purposefully leading His hurting and questioning children into the path of someone who will be a vessel for Him to minister through. And God unquestionably works through us more powerfully to help others when we have completely yielded ourselves to Him.
My life is peppered with ministry opportunities that are too odd to be coincidences. Like when I surrendered my day to God and then took our kids to a blueberry patch to pick blueberries. We spent an hour talking with the owner who wondered if the Bible was true—not because we brought it up, but because after insisting I sit with her on her porch, she asked about it. Or the afternoon I asked God to make my heart more filled with Him than me, and then one of my Wednesday night church kids asked me to help her begin a relationship with Jesus.
Does God lead us in prayers of surrender because He wants to minister to someone and needs us to be in the right place spiritually for that to happen—or does He work because we whole-heartedly submit to Him in certain moments? Scripture tells us the latter is significant. One of my favorite verses is II Chronicles 16:9, “For the eyes of the Lord move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.”
Yielding our hearts doesn’t take time, as much as it takes humility and a willingness to lay down our will. And it doesn’t take silence. My significant surrender moments have happened in the middle of errands, exhaustion, and distractions. The demands and busyness of motherhood may make quietness a rarity, but that shouldn’t prevent us from whole-heartedly submitting to God on a daily basis.
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