For Moms: One Verse a Day Is All You Need

Sometimes I feel like I might go clinically insane. Being at home each day with three children under the age of four is enough to put me in a straightjacket.

Me: What do you want for breakfast?

Two-year-old son: Cereal with no milk.

Me: It’s going to be super dry. Are you sure you don’t want milk?

Two-year-old: The bubbles in the milk are scary. I don’t want milk.

Me: Okay, here you go.

Two-year-old: (Screaming) I don’t want this green bowl! It is not my favorite color! I want a blue bowl!

Four-year-old: (In a singsong voice) Ha ha, I got the blue bowl. I got the blue bowl. Blue is my favorite color.

Two-year-old: (Screaming louder now) No, it’s not your favorite color! You like orange and green!

Four-year-old: (Still singsong) Ha ha, blue is my favorite color. Blue is my favorite color.

Infant: Whaaaaaaaaaaa! Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

Me: Whaaaaaaaaa!

Breakfast is served at seven every morning and by 7:05, I am ready to call it quits! Now, I love my kids. They are adorable and lovely. But they are also draining, selfish, stubborn, unappreciative, demanding, and exhausting. I have not slept in almost five years because of them.

There is a reason prisoners of war are deprived of sleep by their captors: it breaks them down.

I am broken down.

A friend texted me today to ask how I thought she could, “Feel God in the midst of the monotony of dishes, cooking, diapers, laundry, time-outs, homework, and so on.” I smiled because I had the same conversation with two different women yesterday. How do moms survive? I look at those crazy people who say, “Cherish this time, because they will be grown up before you know it,” and I want to yell, “I can’t wait until they are grown up and feeding and wiping themselves!”

In Matthew 11:28, Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Do you think he was talking to moms here? The word “weary” is defined as “to grow tired, exhausted.” I think this about sums up how all moms feel every minute of every day!

The “rest” Jesus promises is “in order to recover and collect strength.” Yes, please! But how do I go to Jesus in the midst of all this chaos? What does “Come to me” even look like?

I have a genuine desire to be closer to the Lord, yet other things are always competing for (and winning) my attention. How do other moms do it? I have friends who routinely talk about their morning devotional time. What?!? You have time to yourself where (a) your kids are quiet and (b) your kids are quiet? How does that happen?

A friend recently told me that when her kids were little, she would leave her Bible open on the kitchen counter. Her goal was to read just one verse every day. One verse was all she had the time and energy for, and if she left her Bible open on the counter, it reminded her to read her one verse. While making lunch or doing dishes, she would meditate on that verse.

Assuming the verse is not Esther 8:9 (the longest verse in the Bible), I could read one simple verse and meditate on it all day long too. A verse is usually roughly the length of a text message, and I find times to read (and respond to) those all day long. My friend explained that reading just that one verse daily while her children were small helped her establish a habit of reading Scripture, and when her kids were older and in school, she was able to read longer portions of the Bible.

Thanks to my friend’s encouragement, I have committed to reading one verse daily. I am leaving my Bible open on the kitchen counter, and if spaghetti sauce gets spilled on it or Cheerios begin to stick to the pages, I will simply consider them casualties of war and keep on reading. [Tweet “I don’t think God is keeping track of how much we read each day.”] Instead, I think He honors our desire to seek Him in the midst of toddlers fighting, babies teething, and sleepless nights. He will meet us there and give us rest…one verse at a time.

Brandy Lidbeck is a licensed marriage and family therapist living in Northern California with her husband and three children. She is passionate about both truth and humor, and if she can get them both in the same conversation, it’s a win/win. She blogs at sipofbrandy.com for fun and thegiftofsecond.com for those impacted by a loved one’s suicide.