May Spiritual Discipline Support Thread: Open to all faiths and practices

[annettemarie]

I was thinking this morning of how difficult it is for me to follow my own spiritual discipline/practice as a mother. I often get so caught up in the minutia of day to day living and taking care of everyone else that I push my own spiritual needs to the side. There are threads in the fitness forum that have been really inspirational to me and have encouraged me to look after my physical needs, and I thought we could start something in here as well. Obviously something like "Pray 10000 minutes in May!" isn't going to work so I thought we could all just write our goals and support one another in making time to meet them, whatever they may be. I'd love to see the thread be open to mamas of all faiths, and it's intended to be a support thread, not a debate thread.

[genifer]

I dont know about you and I dont know if this will help you at all, not knowing what your spirituality is but.... I tend to sort of combine my spirituality, faith (being a christian that is) with my motherhood. Its not seperate to me. Since this is a thread open to All faiths Im just going to use the lingo I would normally use, if thats ok... Right then, for me, I spend all day in prayer. All day, Im just praying constantly, there are times when I get into myself and what I see instead of asking God to help me see things from His pov, but mostly... and its taken some practice... in every circumstance I face, trials throughtout the day, be it with the kids, back chatting, or dh and I having a disagreement, or even thru the little lovelinesses that we share, its all part of my faith, Im praying thru it all. Talking to God. Im not suggesting this is how you should do it, Im just saying what I do. This combined with the time I spend in God's word (the bible.. talking as if I would talk to my christian friends here, assuming thats ok), meditating on it as Im, lets say, kneading bread, or hoovering, or cleaning the toilet. This, as I think about it now, keeps me from thinking things like 'those kids never pick up after themselves' or 'This sucks I wish I was doing something else'. So for me, its all part and parcel of the whole being a christian, mom, wife, etc package. Is this the kind of thing you were talking about? I could go on. Im finding the biggest and most important thing for me to do is make that quiet time in prayer... some days it is only 5, 10, 15 minutes here and there. I mean there are days when life is just manic, Im pms-ing and very emotional, etc. Life can just be crazy for a woman some days! lol. But the very best times is when I can actually take the time to spend a good hour or more in the Word, drinking it up, feasting on it, being filled with the love, joy, peace, patience, ...etc.... oh go on then, gentleness, faithfulness, goodness... I forget the other two, but last one... hard one... self control. Its thru the trials... daily ones, as well as the big ones, that I grow in those areas......

So, thats how it is for me.. as a start. Is this what you were talking about? This is how I do it. I like this idea by the way, I look forward to actually seeing how women of other faiths 'do it'.
thanks for starting this thread!

[anjelika]

What a timely thread! I was just thinking about this issue this morning...

[annettemarie]

Genifer, I strive to not compartmentalize my faith as well, but there are certain practices I want to do-- getting to daily Mass, having some quiet time to pray and read my Bible--that I find myself vonstantly putting on the back burner.

[PPK]

I committed to a 40 day meditation and limited the time to just 3.5 minutes. I passed the 40 day mark and am now going for 90 days of it...maybe at that point I'll go for 120 or 1,000 (these are significant numbers for meditation spans).

I used to spend anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half every morning in meditation and prayer...that was obviously before ds!

I found myself getting stressed over trying to fit it into my life with ds and WOHM part-time, so I decided on baby-steps. There's no way I can be too tired/busy/whatever to not sit down and conciously focus for 3.5 minutes..this way I can still tune-in, clear my mind, and pray or set an intention for myself or others.

Its certainly a change from before, but I find I try to focus that much more intently and make the most of what time I have. Also, I started using my spiritual name as a constant reminder of my spiritual nature and I leave spiritual texts in various rooms and will bring one out to the car (good for waiting at the drive thru bank line, etc.).

Great thread!

[kimiij]

I started out the year memorizing two scriptures each month. I have since fallen off.

I do try and do a devotional each morning. I find that it helps to have a book or a pamphlet to help lead me in prayer and in bible reading.

My favorite devotional of all times is "My Utmost for his Highest" by Oswald Chambers. I usually read the passage and then pray and read the bible chapter surrounding the indicated scripture.

I've also used the "Our Daily Bread" pamphlet in a similar manner. My church gives these out for free. They usually cover 3 months at a time.

Right now I'm reading a regular book (it has 30 short chapters) and if it has some suggested scriptures then I read those. I also pray about whatever topic the chapter was about in addition to whatever prayers I have.

But...I really need to get back on the memorizing scripture discipline.

Annettemarie - have you tried using a devotional?

[kimiij]

If you're Catholic, here's a devotional by Amy Welborn: http://www.amazon.com/Catholic-Woman.../dp/0829420576

[genifer]

OOoh Kim, you know what Im doing? Ive been pouring over Roman's chapter 8 for months now, just taking it to bits... I want to move on and the Holy Spirit just leads me back to that chapter. I use several different bibles during my bible studies. Ive got some new bibles for the kids, they were given some Good News bibles from the church we started going to (as gifts) and I use them alongside my NKJV as well as the NIV. I have also used my son's children's bible, lol, so helpful sometimes. The NKJV has different reference links like different verses that link up the different topics in the verses Im reading. Then the niv is a chain link edition and it does the same thing as the nkjv but goes into a bit more depth bc in the back of the bible is a massive chain index, as well as an archeological supplement. So, if your christian a good bible (or two or three, lol) will go a long long way when you really want to go into depth.

[annettemarie]

Thanks for the devotional rec!

PPK, I love the idea of a 40 day meditation. And I think leaving spiritual books in every room in the house is a great idea. For a while I had The Apostolate of Holy Motherhood in the bathroom, LOL!

ETA: Meant to say, I've tried devotionals, but I tend to find them to be too "sound bite"ish. Which I guess is the nature of a devotional.

[ursusarctos]

Great idea! If I just had a faith or a practice I would join in, but I'm in limbo in regards to those right now I will be reading though! :

[annettemarie]

OK, so my goals:
1. Get to morning mass twice a week.
2. Wake up early enough to at least say a decade of the rosary. This would necessitate going to bed before 1 AM, LOL!
3. Work more daily prayer into our routine. We've gotten slack about praying before meals other than dinner. :

[holyhelianthus]

I started a similar thread a while back and totally forgot about it until I saw this. I so need to get on this! Dh feels the same way. I am trying to think of what I feel I need to do and what I feel I can chew right now as I don't want to try too much at once- for me that is a recipe for failure.

Thanks for this thread! :

[MyLittleWonders]

I'm a spiritual eclectic and love this thread as I've been feeling a great loss of spirituality in my life right now. Right now, I'm reading through various Holy books, so I think my goals is daily reading from some source (I'm trying to work on various NT books as well as the Quran), and trying to sit in prayer/meditation even 5 minutes a day with my beads (I really want to reread Simply Pray, which was written by a UU minister IIRC and restart praying in that manner).

So, two goals which really should only take about 20-30 minutes out of my day but will probably help pick me up a bit.

1. daily reading from a Holy book or other spiritual source
2. daily prayer/meditation starting even with just 5 minutes
Oh, and 3. consciously scrolling through all I am grateful for before bed.

[AngelBee]

I'm in.....late