I am not trying to equate praying to blogging, but this reminds me why I have so many started posts and so few finished ones. Once I get distracted I have a hard time picking up where I left off - that is part of the reason Motherhood was not in my 'plan' back when I thought I would have control over my life.

Interruptions and Intentions

"Try interrupting the meditations of someone who is very attached to her spiritual exercises and you will see her upset, flustered, taken aback. A person who has true freedom will leave her prayer, unruffled, gracious toward the person who has unexpectedly disturbed her, for to here it's all the same - serving God by meditating or serving Him by responding to her neighbor. Both are the will of God, but helping the neighbor is necessary at that particular moment."

-St. Francis de Sales


The summer sun is just beginning to seep through the blinds. The baby sleeps soundly beside me. My husband has already left for work. Amazingly, the older girls are still asleep in bed together, all legs and elbows, intertwined in a nest of sheets.

I slip downstairs and make some coffee. I pull out my Bible and my prayer journal and settle myself down at the kitchen table. My heart is still and so is my home. I begin to pray. "Lord, I offer everything..."

I hear a baby whimper softly over the monitor. Then silence. I utter a quick prayer of thanksgiving.

Then I begin again. "Lord..."

"Mommy?"

I jump, startled to find my toddler standing in the living room.

"I hungee," she says.

I hold back my sigh, remembering the words of St. Francis that I'd, only days before, stumbled across in a book about saints.

This is my daily bread: Interrupted prayers, unfinished sentences and essays, cold cups of coffee.

A sigh does slip out, but only softly, gently, and then I smile, opening my arms wide. My child climbs on my lap and nestles close. "I hungee," she repeats.

I leave my prayer journal and Bible behind to make her breakfast. As I fill my child's sippy cup with milk, I ask that God will me fill me up, too, and that he will perfect my intentions, that he will help me make my life a hymn of love to him, and that I will allow the many interruptions I have on any given day to help me to grow in patience and holiness.