Simply Prayer

"Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice." Psalm 141:2

"Let us lift up our heart with our hands unto God in the heavens." Lamentations 3:41

Our church right now is part of a prayer watch in our community. That means that each church who is participating is taking a 24 hour chunk of time to pray continuously for our community. At first, I will admit that I was hesitant to sign up for a time to pray. First of all, it was broken up into half hour chunks. That's a long time to pray. And not only is it a long time to actually be praying, in the life of a mother, a half hour is a very long time, and it is very difficult to find that 30 minutes where I can be alone and by myself. My first thought had been to take a time in the middle of the night, where I could be pretty much ensured quiet and solitude. Except that I don't think I have the diligence to actually get up when that alarm goes off. I could very easily see myself turning off the alarm and rationalizing going back to sleep. So that wasn't an option for me.

Then I thought about prayer. And while I still wanted it to be undisturbed prayer, my eyes were opened to the possibilities that I can pray anywhere. I puzzled over this for a minute and realized the one place and the one time where I can be assured complete solitude, unless a real disaster should strike. And that is in the shower. As strange as it may sound, (and with the help of my husband who got the kids rolling this morning while I did so,) I set my alarm for a few minutes early this morning and hopped in the shower to fulfill my prayer commitment. Surprisingly, it worked very well. I spent the entire half hour talking to God and sharing my heart, and I didn't get interrupted once.

So the moral of the story today is that I have no excuses. I've really been chiding myself because while I take the time every day for a devotional, I don't take the time to really talk to God every day. My reasoning has always been a lack of time to myself. Today I realized that I don't need time to myself to spend time with God. I can do it anywhere. And if my daily prayer time is done in portions in between tending to my children, that's okay too. I simply need to spend more time in prayer. And if it means something as unorthodox as the shower, so be it.