I saw the phrase "life maintenance" on a friend's profile today and it got me to thinking, what maintenance do I need to do in my life. And then I got overwhelmed...
Maintenance in family life is constant. It is not something you relegate to one or two evenings. It is not something you ever complete. This realization was a hard one to accept. I am a recovering closet perfectionist who still cannot live life without a calendar and a list. I take GREAT pleasure in crossing things off my list when they are complete. After welcoming John Ross into our life I had to come to terms with the fact that just because I cross a task off my list doesn't mean that I won't have to do it again tomorrow or next week. At this point, I am less concerned with completion as I am with category of frequency such as daily, weekly, monthly, and my self-coined "when I can" category.
For my own stress relief, I will list them here. Just kidding...I know we all have our lists and no one needs to spend any extra time reading mine.
Here's the problem. When I wrote my lists, prayer didn't cross my mind until I got to "when I can". I'm not sure how I should feel about that. I mean, I'm the kind of gal who believes that prayer is key to a calm and collected life even when it gets crazy. I am also the kind of gal who believes that God meets me at the sink, the washing machine, or on the highway. That said, it seems that when I don't have prayer built into my daily "life maintenance" I have a hard time remembering to meet God at our designated oasises.
A friend of mine lovingly challenged me to look at my prayer life as one cause for my manic-ness this past week. In addition to a severe case of hormones, I had to admit to her that my prayer life sucks!!!
Okay friends, how do you build regular prayer time into your daily life maintenance? I'm looking for practical ideas that will work as built in reminders. When I was little, my mom always kept the family meds (we have some serious asthma issues in our family) in the drinking class cupboard. That way, anytime we went to the cupboard (especially at mealtimes like breakfast and bedtime snacks) we would see them and be reminded to take them.
Where do I put my regular prayer so that I am always reminded of it?
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