We moms who want to nurture our relationship with God—but also lead busy lives with children—often find ourselves caught between a rock and hard place. Prayer practices seem to require 1) undivided chunks of time; 2) quiet; 3) a peaceful environment. I don’t know about you, but those three almost NEVER occur at our house, at least not at the same time!
So I’ve learned that realistic expectations for prayer are essential as a parent. Lent is no exception. Over the years I’ve tried to live by these 3 simple ideas, and each year I find that they lead me in surprising ways to a deeper Lent.
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Lower your expectations.
Every year, Lent becomes the Same Story. I set all these lofty goals: I will pray this much! I will read that book! I will give up this bad habit! I will give more to those in need! Then life intervenes in its usual busy, frantic ways, and I wind up feel utterly deflated by my inability to make any progress in my Lenten disciplines.
I want to do All The Things, and then I set myself up for failure.
So for the past few years, I’ve deliberately tried to be cautious about my plans for Lent. Honestly, I set the bar low and I refuse to beat up on myself. Surprisingly, this has led me to stick to my Lenten disciplines better than I ever did in the past. I try to care for myself like I think God would: gently, lovingly, with forgiveness and understanding. So I let myself stumble, and then I celebrate when I pick myself up.
Lent is a time for growth, for discipline and self-reflection, and for deepening our relationship with God. It’s not a time to feel lousy about ourselves for not doing enough.
I also think it’s important to remember that as parents, we make sacrifices all year round. So our living of Lent goes beyond 40 days—we don’t have to do everything right now!
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Make short time for small prayer.
My spiritual director always reminds me of two truths: your work as a mother is prayer and your desire to pray is prayer. This last one took me a long time to accept. At first it seemed like a cop-out—don’t I actually have to PRAY to please God? But I have come to understand that God knows the deepest desires of our hearts. God knows that our longing for prayer is itself good and holy.
So I try to welcome the desire for prayer when it comes, and then carve out time and space to attend to that desire—sometimes later in the day after the kids are all in bed, or sometimes right in the crazy moment with three little boys tugging at my sleeve.
But I try to let go of the expectation that I can pray like a monk in an abbey with all the time, space, and place set neatly before him. That’s not my life. Nor is it my call.
Instead, I can pray like a busy mother.
Instead, I can pray like a busy mother.
I can take two minutes to greet the day with a whispered word of thanks. I can share a short morning prayer with my kids when they wake up. I can bless our food at meals and remember those who will go without today. I can pray with my kids on the drive to school and in the quiet of their rooms before bed. I can slow down in the day’s whirlwind to give thanks for the gifts in my life.
My mantra has become “make short time for small prayer.” I don’t have an hour to meditate, but I have hours with many small moments I can fill with a word of blessing, praise, or petition. In this season of my life, that is what I have to give. And I think God, who cares for us all like a loving parent, understands and blesses that truth.
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Get creative.
Shake up everyday habits in little ways. Change your homepage from email to something more meaningful, like a website with prayer and scripture for daily reflection. Stop yourself before turning on the radio or TV first thing in the morning, and simply sit in the silence. Make your cup of coffee at home instead of grabbing a latte while running errands, and donate the extra $3 instead. Even in the busy whirl of work-kids-home-repeat, we can all find small ways to break out of our routine and become more mindful of how we’re living during Lent.
Give your “alms” online. What busy mother hasn’t turned to online shopping for diapers, groceries, clothes or other necessities? Do the same with your Lenten giving. In past years I’ve been able to organize our Lenten donations online at night once the kids are sleeping. So much easier than frantically trying to dig out my wallet from the diaper bag when they’re taking up a collection at church!
Multi-task: Combine Lenten practices with spring cleaning. I’ve been inspired by the “40 Bags in 40 Days” challenge to rid our home of extra clothes and household goods. What haven’t we used in years? What could someone else use that we don’t want? I’ve always been haunted by the teachings of the early church fathers that the unworn clothes in our closets belong to the poor. So digging through and giving away has been a wonderful Lenten practice—and jumpstarts our spring cleaning, too!
What works for you? How are you living Lent this year?
Laura Kelly Fanucci is a writer and mother of three young boys. She writes about faith and family life at Mothering Spirit and is the author of Everyday Sacrament: The Messy Grace of Parenting.
“Make short time for small prayer.” This is my every day reality, Lent or no Lent, as well. Sometimes it is just that 5 minutes when I get up from my desk at work and go walk outside and just try to be calm in the presence of God with no words, or maybe just a “thank you”, “I’m sorry”, or “can you spot me on this one, God?”. During Advent and Christmas I tried to tackle as many liturgical things as possible…now I am just cleaning up and clearing out and trying to practice peace and calm. Lovely post!
Yes! It feels like I just recovered from Advent. Good thing Lent is supposed to be simple!
Wonderful post! Finding time for prayer can be tough when you have little ones. I pray the rosary every night after my littlest has fallen asleep and the house is finally quiet. We also pray before meals, together as a family before the kids go to sleep each night, and I pray a decade of the rosary with the kids each morning before school. I’ve also started tuning in to Catholic radio whenever I’m in the car – that has led to a lot more prayer and reflection. We also planted a Mary garden in our backyard earlier this year, so I always take a few moments to pray when I take the kids outside to play. It’s a lot of little things, but they’re all do-able.
Now that Lent is approaching, I’m planning to add a little bit of Bible reading every night. Baby steps, right?
Those are more than baby step! Bravo!
I love the idea that just the desire to prayer is a prayer! I’ve never heard that, but it is a very freeing thought.
Yes! So great for those days when you try and try but keep getting side-tracked!
This was a great read! Thank you so much for the inspiration! Lent is so powerful!
Wasn’t this such a great post? Laura really hit on some great points here!
Lovely post! Last year, after crashing and burning with my lofty goals , I asked God what I should do. It came to me that I could give up daydreaming about a prettier house or an easier life, which I routinely did while I was driving — I do a LOT of driving! Too simple, too easy — where’s the sacrifice in that, I thought? (insert laughter here) Just say it proved to be far more tempting than I had foreseen, but I began praying the Hail Mary over and over until the urge would subside (or I arrived at my destination). It turned out to be an incredibly fruitful practice and taught me so much about myself. By Easter,I was much happier with my life and family and felt closer to the Lord. It had seemed far too insignificant a task, and yet the results have been huge. While it is true that raising a family is a sacrificial act all year long, we can easily forget the interior surrender to our sufferings that is an equally necessary part of it. As a side benefit, walking into my “cozy” old farmhouse I was no longer tired and discouraged when I saw the scratches and patches, but felt, for the first time in a long time, the warmth and pleasure of coming Home.
Wow. That is beautiful! I tell ya, I feel like I have heard a lot of different Lenten sacrifices, but this one is the most unique. And, you’re right, probably the hardest. Controlling our thoughts and daydreams is almost impossible at times. I love this idea!
i am SO happy I found this. This is my first Lent as a mom, and I’ve been driving myself crazy trying to figure out how to make it through with the craziness that parenting is. Loved the ideas, and the logic behind it!
Thank you! :)
To be honest, I’ve heard a lot of my mom friends talk this way and I don’t like it much. I think that in Lent we are supposed to feel a little bad about ourselves! We should feel guilty and inadequate. We should realize that we fail every day and that sometimes it makes God angry.
No, we’re not in a monastery, but that doesn’t mean we can’t have real prayer time, even if it means sacrificing 20 minutes of sleep or time with your husband or down time.
Spring cleaning, in my opinion, totally does not double for Lenten observance. Neither does being a parent mean we sacrifice enough. Every life involves sacrifice and suffering, but an essential part of Lent is choosing to suffer on purpose. No passive suffering is enough for Lent. Self-improvement and new years resolutions and things we ought to do or want to do for ourselves are not Lent either. To live Lent, you have to suffer, on purpose, just for the sake of the suffering. That’s not all of Lent, but it’s one aspect.
I needed this today! It is Easter and I have been thinking about all of the things I had planned for Lent. This past week I have been mostly thinking how I want to make sure I plan less next year. I had written out a list of tasks like 40 bags for 40 days. I have done that 40 items for 40 days etc for a few years. But this time I decided 40 tasks. How silly. I would like Lent to be a time of more reflections and less chores. (Which don’t get done).
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