Mornings Full of Breath Prayers

I confess my mornings tend to start abruptly with the sound of children. Most mornings Bruce gathers all of them to allow me a few more minute of sleep. We’re still in the middle of middle of the night wakings, so sleep is a commodity – one that I grasp at & try to hold onto as long as I can.

I’ve been trying to put my phone straight in my pocket and, instead of catching up on all I missed through the night, walking downstairs & through the front door to stand on the porch breathing in the fresh morning air and staring at the majestic Pikes Peak. A quick prayer in my chest:

Breathe In
Your mercies are new,
Breathe Out
great is your faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22-23)

I enter the kitchen just before Bruce leaves to work, trying to steal a couple minutes together over fried eggs and cups of coffee (all prepared by him to help give me the best start to the day!) He stands to leave – making the commute over the perilous ice from our backdoor to the shed. I pour myself another cup of coffee watching him walk to work and attempt to finish it before it gets lukewarm and Thorin needs to nurse again.

Breathe In
Show me the way I should go,
Breathe Out
for to you I entrust my life. (Psalm 143:8)

With three children it’s easy for a to-do list to start creeping up in my mind and my thoughts. Requests for fruit snacks and cups of milk instantly echo in my home. I’m needed.

A quick glance around my house fills in the list: dishes, amazon returns, giant Costco packages still sitting on the counter waiting for a home in my too small pantry, and the homeschool table waiting to be laid out with todays activities. Then, of course, all three meals.

I check our calendar to go make sure I know when I need to leave the house for the day and try to calculate how long it will take all four of us to get ready, loaded in the car, and to our destination.

I open up my Bible on the kitchen table and I read what I can when I can in between making bowls of oatmeal, holding a nursing baby, getting out paint supplies, and helping clean up spilled milk. I leave it there in the middle of our mess until I’ve finished the 2 or 3 chapters in the reading plan for the day – highlighting as I go with a journal or the note app on my phone near by for thoughts I want to jot down. It may even stay there until dinner time. I’ve learned to live with a season of not-so-quiet quiet times. If I wait for the perfect time of day to be able to sit down for an hour and really dig into the Bible for an inductive study, I won’t find it. Right now my day of parenting with a 4-year-old, a 3-year-old, and a 6-month-old keeps things loud and choppy. I take the moments my day gives me and attempt to fill them with scripture.

Thorin is entertained with some Cheerios in his highchair – his chubby hands reaching towards them with determination. Hilde starts school for her stuffed animals and Millie climbs into my lap. She is my snuggle bug. I let her write an “M” in my Bible and I add the date so I remember this moment.

Breathe In
Let the children come to me,
Breathe Out
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 19:24)

The cuckoo clock chimes – it’s song echoing throughout the rooms – telling us all it is time for the next thing. We throw on sweatshirts, change diapers, pack bags, and double check that all shoes are on the correct feet. I gather my chicks and heard them into the car.

Breathe In
The Lord is my strength & my shield,
Breathe Out
my trust is in him & I’m helped. (Psalm 28:7)

Each moment brings another chance to place my trust in the Lord and let Him help me. Help when I want to scream at the kids for disobeying again, help to choose a better attitude when I want to roll my eyes and sigh obnoxiously at the girls who won’t leave each other alone, help when Thorin just won’t go down for the nap even though his body desperately needs it, and help when all my mama reserves have been emptied. The Lord is my strength and my shield. And so our day begins – and continues – with mornings full of breath prayers.