My Spiritual Journey...

Tuesday is my day to update my spiritual journey and hold myself accountable in my relationship with the Lord. This past week has been interesting to say the least. Last Monday, one of the kids I watch was sick which quickly passed to my kids. After a week of bleaching bathrooms and toys, we finally recovered and everyone was healthy...that is until today. Unfortunately the same virus is going around the nursery at church and since I coordinate the nursery on Sundays, I woke up this morning with the sickeningly gross virus! I've never had to call Brent to come home from work before, but today I had to make that call. Both girls were starving and crying and every time I moved, I would have to run to the bathroom. All that to say, my consistently has not been the greatest. But here's the rundown of what I attempted this past week.

1. I continued to implement the discipline of mediation in my life, but added a little more structure and planning to when and where I would meditate.

2. Prayer: last week I mentioned that I was going to work on some structure in my prayer life. Here's what I did

• Continued my morning quiet time before the girls got up
• After I got everyone down for naps, I would visit this site http://www.sacredspace.ie It walks you through some scripture and gives some specific scriptural things to pray for.
  

• At the Renevore conference, I attended a workshop entitled "Family Spirituality" They gave this suggestion that I have been working to implement daily over the past few weeks.
  

1. You list things that you do all day long. For example, shower, fix breakfast, load/unload the dishwasher, fix lunch, check email, etc...
2. Next attach a prayer request to each thing on your life. For example,

shower = pray for my attitude and focus as I go throughout my day
fix breakfast = pray for Brent, his relationship with Christ, and his
productivity level today at word
Load/unload the dishwasher= pray for the girls to come to faith in Christ
(and so on...you get the point)

Next you list 2 things that frustrate you during the day and attach a prayer request to those:

1. The girls both start disobeying at the same time and I can't get
anything done = pray for some of our friends who are missionaries in
China
2. When a kid that I watch shows up really late without calling and we all sit
around waiting for him/her and we can't go do anything fun = pray for the
mentoring ministry and all my mentors as they invest in their mentees.

This list has helped me to be productive in my prayer life instead of just periodically praying throughout the day. This doesn't replace the sporadic prayers throughout the day that the Lord brings to mind, but it does take those mundane daily tasks and attaches meaning and significance to them. Also, by attaching prayers to my frustrations, it helps those frustrations become more enjoyable as well.

I implemented these 3 things so that not only do I have structured time alone with God at least twice during the day, I'm also spending time in prayer throughout the entire day. I'm excited to be healthy and get a little more consistency this next week!