Devotions amid Diapers: How Moms of Littles Spend Time with God

Hi, I'm Susan from Vandalia, Ohio, and I'm a Monthly Partner.

One reason I support this ministry is that I find the content always trustworthy, biblically reliable, and encouraging. I love that there are so many choices of resources within the ministry to reach different age groups and fit different preferences or needs. Enjoy today's episode of Revive Our Hearts, brought to you in part by the Monthly Partner team.

Dannah Gresh: There’s a helpful pattern Asheritah Ciuciu has noticed in the psalms.

Asheritah Ciuciu: When you wake up in the morning, declare God’s love over your day, His kindness. And then at night, when you lay in bed, reflect on the events of the day and look for the ways that He was faithful . . . and then posture your heart in thankfulness for that!

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy Demoss Wolgemuth, author of A Place of Quiet Rest, for January 25, 2023. I’m Dannah Gresh.

A major theme you’ll often hear on Revive Our Hearts is the importance of spending time with the Lord on a daily basis. That’s because we’re truly “prone to wander,” as the hymn says, and we need to recalibrate our souls each and every day, and we need regular communion with our heavenly Father.

But here’s the problem: for busy moms, getting time alone with God can be so-o-o difficult! Today we’re going to hear from moms with lots on their plates. They’ll be sharing their tips and strategies and frustrations when it comes to “Devotions amid the Diapers.”

The voices you’re about to hear are women who have a public ministry of some sort. They are authors, podcasters, speakers and, yes, wives and moms, too. They gathered at the Revive Our Hearts headquarters in Michigan to encourage one another. Here’s our host, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, to start us off.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: What has been something in your personal devotional life—maybe recently or in the past—that’s been a practice that you have found helpful in terms of keeping you close to the feet of Jesus? Yes, Asheritah.

Asheritah: So the last two years we’ve been reading the Bible around the breakfast table with my three children, aged six and under. The one question that I’ve started asking myself and then asking them just really helps me focus my heart on why we do this. It is, “What is one thing that we learn about Jesus?”

Sometimes, it’s so easy to get caught up in head knowledge and doing Greek and Hebrew studies and all these observations and everything. I walk away, but my adoration has not grown. My head just puffs up with knowledge. 

And so bringing it down to that one question that even my three-year-old can answer, is to say, “What is one thing that I learn about Jesus here. And what is one thing I want to say in response? How can I respond to Him?” That has always brought me back to adoration.

Nancy: I love that!

Kristen Wetherell: It’s been a harder season with Bible reading in the morning because my husband and I set our alarms at 5:15, and then my daughter wakes up at like 5:30! (laughter) I say, “Lord, I don’t think I can get up any earlier than 5:15!” So it’s been a challenge. 

Having the season before kids of lingering in the Word for an hour and then now having that time to do a more in-depth study has been a challenge! And so, I’ve just been leaving my Bible open on the kitchen counter. 

It seems like a really simple thing, but having it in a room where I’m there most of the day—you know, in and out—has been helpful for keeping my eyes fixed on what I read that morning. The Spirit recalls it to mind, and I think it also prompts me as a mom to weave it into my conversations with my daughter. So that’s been helpful, just to keep it visible there.

Aylín Merck: Over the summer I took a break and listened to hardly anything else, and I just listened to and read God’s Word. It was so helpful even when I was driving, folding laundry, cooking, taking a shower, just having God’s Word playing all the time. I just realized how much time I actually do have!

And even though I couldn’t necessarily study in depth, the Lord was bringing out these patterns and these repeated words. I was seeing the big story of God’s Word of redemption from beginning to end, and it was coming alive in different ways. 

Things about God are so consistent from the beginning to the end, and so it was just really helpful to be listening. I prefer to read because I’m more of a visual learner, but listening was bringing out things that I would not have noticed otherwise.

Nancy: Hunter, I think you’re the one, maybe, that I heard about the Dwell Bible app from. If you’re not familiar with that, get that app! I recommend getting a lifetime subscription, because you’re going to need this all your life! To be able to listen to the Scripture . . .

You can listen to it with different voices, with different music—or no music. I’ve found that just really ministering a lot of grace! I’ve been listening to Psalm 119 and the book of Philippians over and over and over again on the Dwell app and really loving it. So, listening to the Word . . . By the way, for generations it was the only way most people could get the Word. We miss some of that today.

Portia Collins: Just three things: first thing, prayer, having a consistent daily time in prayer. I know when we’re busy, we have a tendency to say quick prayers when I’m enroute to here or XYZ. My sister-in-law and my mother-in-law and I committed to thirty days of prayer at the same time every night. For me, that has been such a life-changing thing!

I think sometimes we can be very lax when it comes to fervent prayer, like connecting head, heart, mind—all of it. Carve out that time—even if it’s at night—consistently praying every day. Also, beginning and ending your day with God.

What that looks like day to day may change. My devotional time during the mornings probably is just that—going through the Scriptures, reading a couple of verses, quick prayer out the door to work. But then, I end my day with God and that may be a more in-depth inductive study or something like that. 

I think it’s very important to begin your day with God and to end your day with God. Worshiping through song, I think that is always very helpful. If you just sing to Jesus, again that is such a way to worship Him and to express your adoration to Him and just sit at His feet.

And so, even when I’m in-between my study time or my prayer time, like when I’m at work, I try to have worship music playing or songs that I can sing. That really just helps to lighten my heart and to help me get through the day when I’m stressed out at work and everybody’s working on my nerves. It keeps me focused on the things of God.

Sarah Walton: Just one brief thing: Scripture is always of primary importance, but I’ve found it really helpful to supplement my devotional time, afterwards, to read Puritan writers’ devotions. They have such a richness in the way that they wrote. They captured truths that I feel like are kind of swimming in my head but I haven’t been able to put in a way that I grasp.

I can’t tell you the amount of times that Spurgeon, or Richard Sibbes—the list could go on of old dead guys—that are so good at putting those things in words. Andrew Murray was one I quoted. 

They’re usually short, and they just have these word pictures. I’m like, “Oh! That just captures it for me!” It makes my Bible reading time kind of illuminate even in a new way, which has been really helpful for me! 

Paula Marsteller: Last week I had the privilege of having Carrie Gaul lead me through some devotions. She did an exercise that I have never done before that I hope to continue to do. She gave us all a paper that has “feeling” words written down. 

There were some main categories like: mad, sad, glad. Under those there are these different variations. You look on the sheet, and you find what word describes you at that moment, and then you just bring that to God in prayer. And I found that to be so helpful!

And then, just ask God to speak into that. Obviously, He speaks authoritatively only through His Word, but it’s a really helpful exercise every morning.

Mary Kassian: I started off as an NIV84girl [New International Version 1984 edition], and then when ESV[English Standard Version of the Bible] came out, I switched to ESV. I’ve been using that since, and I use that in teaching a lot. 

But just within the last year I’ve switched over to the Christian Standard Bible.I just found that switching a version of the Bible has just brought it alive for me in a whole different way! The wording is different, a little bit more poetic. There is a little bit of a different texture and feel to it. 

By the time you’re through it in the same version several times, it becomes so familiar. So, reading it in an unfamiliar way, and yet in a solidly doctrinally sound version, has just been really helpful for me. So, just switching a Bible version, even for a year or two is just a suggestion.

Nancy: I would just affirm that and say my newest most prized possession is this CSBBible, which I had not read throughI’m anESV girl, but the CSB. The reason I started into it was at the time ødidn’t have a journaling Bible. They do now. But, this journaling Bible has been a treasure to me!

Just journaling responses and study, but my writing is so, so tiny that nobody will ever be able to read it! I’m actually having it transcribed, because when I get to teaching, now, some of these passages, it can become some fodder for me.

It’s such a joy, and it’s making me slow down and read more meditatively and prayerfully. . .and I’m catching, seeing things I’ve never seen before in going through the Bible many times. So, the whole practice of journaling through the Bible is something I highly recommend!

Betsy Gomez: In this season of life, I’m really busy; my hands are full. I know this, but it’s been great to remind myself that I don’t need to check boxes but to develop a devotional posture, trying to find ways that my awe for God will grow, like, as I see my baby, or as I look to the sky. I mean, that’s so basic and simple.

We are supposed to know these things--but, for me, I tend to feel like the accomplishment of, “Oh! I studied the Bible! And, oh,look at all my notes.” It’s harder for me to do the simple thing of having a devotional posture and not expecting a perfect moment to arrive to praise the Lord. 

Even like having the constant prayer of, “Lord, give me a heart that is surrendered to You all the time!” So, at times I find that it is harder to have a devotional posture that is ongoing, than just like one moment.

Nancy: I’d love to hear from moms of littles or moms who had littles at one time. I ask just about the devotional practice, and anything that’s been encouraging or helpful to you. 

Asheritah: I want to piggyback on what Betsy said, because I’ve been in that season for the last six years. Something that a friend of mine taught me to do out of the psalms (I can’t remember which one). It is good to declare God’s lovingkindness in the morning and His steadfastness at night.

And the way she broke it do for me was to say, “Asheritah, when you wake up in the morning, declare God’s love over your day—His kindness—that is what you will find . . . whether you’re changing the baby’s diaper, or you’re making food, or you’re writing a blogpost, or you’re serving your husband. Just look for His lovingkindness in your day. 

And then at night, when you lay in bed, reflect on the events of the day and look for His steadfastness—look for the ways that He was faithful—and then posture your heart in thankfulness for that!

That has become such a gentle and yet incredible way to see God’s lovingkindness at work in my life. And again, being in God’s Word (obviously there’s no substitute for that) but His Word then comes alive as I’ve seen the ways He has met me in those moments. And so, I keep coming back to that: declaring His lovingkindness in the morning, His steadfastness at night.

Nancy: I love that! And, Asheritah, you couldn’t remember the reference off the top of your head, but in case others want to look it up, check out Psalm 92, verses 1 and 2. 

Emily Jensen: I just really appreciate what Betsy said about developing a heart posture of devotion in all the different things we do throughout the day. So, specifically for me, I’ve noticed that I don’t think I have any more free spaces to open up that aren’t filled with things. 

But I try to find ways that I can add to or kind of redeem that time for something that is devotional towards the Lord or includes His Word. This is super nitty-gritty and practical. But I keep verses or cards in my car so that on the way to and from school drop-off I can pray while I’m driving. . .

It’s just a set time every day that I have to do it, and I get to pray while I do it. So we do a lot of things like that. I would also just note that with a devotional mindset, when I’m reading Scripture to our kids, or I’m doing an activity with them, sometimes it can feel like, “Okay, this is for them.”

But to realize, “No, this is God’s Word to me, too, and I can get just as much food and nourishment, and I’m not just wearing my teacher hat. I’m wearing my learning hat, and I get to learn alongside them. So I just really do that. If I miss my time in the morning, it can still be “my time,” when I’m having that time with them.

Nancy: And lots on the Risen Motherhood podcast about this kind of thing.

Laura Wifler: Yeah, I feel much of what Em said and what all of you ladies have said. A couple of practical things for me are utilizing the car. I do school. I catechize my kids on the way.

My son is six, just learning to read, and now he asks me the questions and reads them out of the book and finds it just “Awesome!” to be able to read and test mom and see if she’s right. So that’s something that’s really fun, and just reminds me of great truths. We use the New City Catechism.

And then the second thing: I love to read! I think I’ve learned that everyone in this room absolutely loves to read. I’m amazed how I can find a lot of time to read, you know in small moments or before bed. 

And so, something that I’ve been trying to challenge myself with is to read one book of the Bible a week. A lot of times it happens on Sunday—when I started to implement a true Sabbath and not trying to squeeze in work or other things.

But truly to say, “Okay, on that time every Sunday . . .” and to sit down and read a book of the Bible. And literally, the epistles see some action, more maybe than do some of the others. But it’s been really helpful to sit down and read through the whole book of Deuteronomy at one time, and just reflect and think on that.

So, it’s been just a great way to kind of cull through large portions of Scripture at one time, and to say, “I’m not going to read another book for fun right now,” or whatever that may be, but instead to choose God’s Word in those moments. 

Judy Dunagan: Back when our girls were three and six our family was moving to Beijing, China for my husband’s job, I was full of a lot of fear. This was back in 1995, and the healthcare there was nonexistent if you had an emergency.

And so, before we went, my girls—especially my six-year-old—were nervous about moving there. We just learned Joshua 1:9 [NASB] together, and we used motions. And it was, “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified, do not be [discouraged], for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”

We memorized that before we moved there. Within the first month we were there, we were all very, very sick with just a really bad upper respiratory infection, with the pollution, in the dead of winter. We were in our hotel room; we hadn’t found a place to live yet. 

My husband was there, and we recited that together. I was like tearing up (my girls hopefully didn’t notice), but it was really more for me, I think, than them. So just something that simple with your child, with what they’re going through, to learn when they’re anxious or scared that God’s Word is alive!

And then another thing: we used the alphabet praise. You just go through the alphabet and say different names or attributes of God. My girls learned to do this pretty young. We’d just do it in those fearful times when we moved. Just, “You’re Almighty. You’re Beautiful. You’re Compassionate!” We’d go around and do that, which was really sweet!

One other thing I wanted to mention is Sarah’s testimony. In that season when you’re in really deep in sorrow or trials and questioning, when we were there, the Holy Spirit whispered to my heart just through the Word to turn it into a sacrifice of praise. It was like, “Can you praise Me even in this?”

I really didn't understand that at the time, but out of obedience I started to do that in my journal. And so even writing down His faithfulness in the past, even though in the midst of the sorrow and all the trials, it was amazing how that rescued me from despair!

I believe that turning to praise and worship in the midst of trials, the enemy has to flee because when you’re worshiping, he has to leave you alone. So I just made it simple. In my journal I’d write, Sacrifice of Praise at the top of my page, and just start writing those different things that I could see of His faithfulness—even if I had to reach back.

Psalm 77 is a great psalm to see that. In the first half of the psalm, the psalmist is just crying out and really complaining and then it says in verse 11, “But I will remember the deeds of the Lord,” right in the middle of the psalm. And then he starts listing all of His faithfulness, and how God had been faithful to him in the past.

Sarah Walton: In all honesty, this has been a struggle for me for many years. I’m in a little bit of a different place now, but for a lot of years I struggled with a lot of a law-based feeling, like I was falling short. I felt frustrated, because it felt like the Lord had given me an impossible situation, to be filled with His Word. I would hear lots of my friends who had devotions around the table. And if we tried, it would set my son off. And so, we couldn’t have “normal,” like in my mind what felt normal or what I expected.

And so there was a lot of realizing that what we might think is the standard that we want to live up to, that the Lord dictates. It can just be so easy to fall back into law-based living, even subtly, and I really had to learn that the Lord is faithful in those seasons, too.

If He is giving you a season where you literally can make no changes—we usually can make small changes—but sometimes there are situations you don’t have control over. And trusting Him that if He has you there, He will be faithful to provide in those seasons.

So, there were a lot of years where I tried to fit in reading Scripture any place I could. For me, it needed to be the morning. I tried to get up as early as I could, though I couldn’t do it all the time. Beyond that, it really was trusting the Lord in those small moments that I just needed Him to meet me in that place. 

I realized that He was not only going to be with me when I sat down with the pretty little picture of my Bible open and my journal next to me. A lot of times when He met me the most was recalling Scripture. Kind of like when you’re in a desert and you don’t have the water, He just poured into me what I couldn’t do myself at that season.

So, just a grace over those who are in that place. The Lord knows you’re in that place. It’s not that we shouldn’t evaluate, “What can I change if possible?” We can trust Him to provide what we need in those moments, too, even if it looks different than we thought it would.

Abigail Dodds: I’m reflecting on the years of littles and trying to be in God’s Word during that time. One thing I’ve just heard recurring, and I’m sure many of you have, too, is that a lot of times women will come into motherhood having spent time in God’s Word that’s very precious, and they have a particular idea of what that looks like.

Their devotions are what I would call, “a feast.” They’ve learned how to be a “chef” and to prepare this feast for themselves. Now, all the sudden they’re in motherhood and they’re like, “I’m eating spiritual mac ’n cheese, and I feel like a failure. I’m going backwards!”

So I just think helping women to see that learning to eat mac ’n cheese when it’s the season of mac ’n cheese is not going backwards in maturity. That’s actually the mature thing to do. Keep eating. Keep eating, don’t stop eating.

And the biggest hindrance that I see, over and over is then there’s guilt. Because now I’m not having the feast that I had before so, “I must be doing something wrong!” or “I missed that because you didn’t eat yesterday is not a good reason to not eat today. Because your meal is not a feast is not a good reason to not eat what God has given you today to eat.

Just eat! It’s all grace! Be thankful for whatever He’s given you. Then be amazed at that little thing—that mac ’n cheese-—and the way it sustained you. You actually felt better than you did when you were eating the feast! Isn’t it something that He can do with mac ‘n’ cheese meals?!

And so the last thing I would just say is, be humble enough to let other people feed you, okay? It is so humiliating to feel like you’re being spoon fed by someone else your meals from the Word. But there have been times when my husband reading the Word has been the food that has come in, or hearing someone else say it, maybe on a podcast.

Maybe I’m just listening to Pastor John on Solid Joys, but saying, “You know what, I’m so weak right now. I need somebody to spoon feed me.” Just receive it. Put the guilt away and receive it. And He will make loaves and fishes that you can’t imagine from that meal. So, no guilt! 

Paula: My boys are two-and-a-half and eight months old. We’re starting to learn some songs, and we have five songs that we sing every day. I’ve edited this song as we go. Okay. I really miss my sons. The song [originally from the musical Oklahoma], “Oh what a beautiful morning! Oh what a beautiful day! I have the wonderful knowledge, everything’s going God’s way!” So, anyway, we just tweak and edit normal songs. It’s just a lot of fun to sing them to each other.

Nancy: Today we’ve heard from a dozen different women who were part of the Sisters in Ministry gathering, including Abigail Dodds with that spiritual mac ’n cheese analogy! I thought that was so helpful.

I’m not a mom, but all these women are busy moms at various stages of life and parenting. They were helping us know how they spend time with the Lord every day in prayer and in His Word—especially in the midst of the many demands of motherhood!

Dannah: You know, Nancy, I really appreciated something Emily Jensen mentioned. She talked about keeping verses on cards in her car so she can redeem moments in the carpool line, or whenever. Well, maybe someone on our team should send Emily a set of our Savor and Share Scripture Cards!

It’s a deck of fifty-two cards. Each one has a Bible passage printed on it in a fun design. The idea is that you can put them in your car or around your house, meditate on these passages, and then pass them on as an encouragement to someone else.

This week we’ll send you a set as a thank you for your gift of any amount in support of Revive Our Hearts. To make a donation, visit ReviveOurHearts.com, or call us at 1-800-569-5959. Ask about the Scripture cards when you make your donation.

Tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts we’re going to focus on another spiritual discipline. Erin Davis will give us a practical guide to fasting. I hope you’ll be back for Revive Our Hearts. Revive Our Hearts, with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, wants you—even when you’re busy!—to enjoy freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ!

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.