I snapped this this morning because those words there is always space are still running through my head, and it is still the message my heart preaches to my mind.  I want to remember this.  This battle of spending myself well.  This fight to be present but also purposeful.  So remember this mom of a toddler: sometimes your space in The Word might coincide with a little playing at your feet who can't help but touch you all day long.  And, sometimes the mood won't be quite right, the noise won't dim all the way, the coffee won't be hot, worship music won't play.  Sometimes you switch from reading John 13 to The Little Blue Truck and back again and that is more than okay.  Because there is power in The Word and there is power in the sanctifying act of mothering and when the two cross, the best parts of life might just spill together.

Maybe my time studying truth is also the time he sees his mama treasure The Book.  Maybe taking the time to sit and quiet and be still and to say hush baby is his first taste of reverence.  Maybe getting alone with God isn't the point of this season, maybe bringing God into every little corner of our small, sticky, smelly lives is the point.  Already he has figured out one book is more important than the rest.  Already he knows it holds special space.  And tomorrow, his own will be in the mailbox.  A friend told me her littles are already on their second one because the spine wore away and the pages fell to pieces and I looked at my own ragged Bible and smiled.  Good.

This Biblical culture of truth seeking and wisdom studying and quiet meditating sometimes seems the direct opposite of the toddler world of noise and destruction and unpredictable meltdowns I find myself in but here thousands of us are, creating those spaces where noise and color and tiny hearts and slightly older, determined hearts can pray the prayer of the New Testament Give us eyes to see and ears to hear while soldiering on.