Imagine yourself sitting beside your best friend on a large comfortable couch, face to face, next to a warm fire. Holding your tea, you sit in comfortable silence with each other. You don’t feel the pressure to come up with something intelligent or witty to say. You aren’t embarrassed when your eyes well up with tears. You aren’t afraid to share your deepest fears, your most closely held dreams, or your most embarrassing flaws. It’s a place of comfort, security, and safety. A place where you feel most fully yourself, most fully accepted and most fully connected.
This is a picture of what prayer can be. A place of being fully known, fully loved, and fully secure.
As mothers, our lives call for an almost continual pouring out: our time, our energy, our focus. Sometimes prayer can feel like one more demand upon us, or one more ‘to do.’ However, what if prayer wasn’t another ‘to do,’ but rather a place to experience rest? Listen to the words of Jesus:
“Come to me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-29).
When we come to God, he gives us rest. Spending time with God is not a heavy yoke, it is a place of rest for our souls. God knows that the life we lead on this fallen planet is hard. And he wants to be someone we can come to to unload our burdens and receive refreshment.
We live in a culture that values activity, contribution, and measurable results. It can be difficult to value rest, being still, and receiving. So often our worth comes from what we accomplish.
This season of motherhood is long and sometimes hard. Take care of yourself. Give yourself permission to nap. Make time for girlfriends. Enjoy your morning latte. Indulge in your favorite Netflix drama. Those are all fun and refreshing and we need that. Although, in my experience, the benefits of these types of things are often temporary. The place that resets our spirits, fills our souls, and refreshes us for another day is that place of restful prayer with Jesus.
Journal and Reflection Questions:
- Do you see God as someone you can relax and be yourself with, as in the scenario described at the beginning? If not, explore with God why that might be. He LOVES spending time with you. You are important to him. Ask him to reveal his loving, caring nature to you on a deeper level.
- Does your devotional time fill you up and strengthen you? If not, ask Jesus what you might do differently in your time with him. There is no one-size-fits-all when it comes to spending time with him. What fills YOU up?
- I created a 5-day devotional specifically designed to draw mothers into a place of rest in the midst of all the demands placed upon them. If you are longing to experience this kind of rest, download your free copy of “A Week with Mary and Martha.”
- Lastly, if you are interested in growing in prayer, consider joining my Facebook Group, All Things Prayer. I post daily encouragement along with announcements of my workshops and my new on-line prayer class, which will launch in early 2021!
Holli Aparicio is a homeschooling mom to Lydia (13) and Sofia (12) and a lover of all things prayer. She has served in prayer ministry roles at Substance Church, Prayer Ventures and Arise Ministries and as a guest writer for the Substance Moms Blog. When she isn’t busy homeschooling her two daughters, she takes great joy in equipping others to encounter God in prayer and hear his voice through workshops and retreats. She lives with her husband, Ricardo, and her two lovely daughters in Maple Grove, Minnesota.