Why I Stopped Having "Quiet Time"

I still remember the first time my oldest child cussed. She was two. I had spilled something on the floor while cooking dinner and muttered a six letter word to express my frustration. My sweet girl, who wasn’t even paying attention (or so I thought), latched right onto that word and gleefully repeated it for several days anytime anything hit the floor.

This served as a humbling reminder that our babies are always watching and listening. Everything we do, they are seeing and emulating. The good, the bad, and the ugly!

I didn't grasp it at the time, but that lesson was so much bigger than a reminder to watch my tongue.

Fast forward to the birth of my second child. In the thick of a sleepless postpartum, there I was, still trying to squeeze in my quiet time. I found a reading plan to follow and wrote out the chapters and dates in my beautifully organized, color-coded planner. Dutifully I added it to my to-do list each day, only to grow increasingly frustrated when I was unable to fully "complete" this task.

I growled in frustration at having to pause my Bible reading again to answer a nagging "Mom! Mom, look!" as my energetic 3-year-old burst into the room. When my 4-month-old still didn't nap for more than 20 minutes at a time, I lamented "God, how am I suppose to be still and hear you when my baby won't sleep??".

My perfect color-coded plan sat unfinished and I felt inadequate and overwhelmed. How was I supposed to seek Him when my kids wouldn't just be quiet long enough for me to check this task off my to-do list?? And if I didn't get my reading done today, I would be so behind tomorrow! And there it was. The heart problem.

I was more worried about having the "ideal" 30 minute block of quiet time to complete my plan with my warm cup of coffee than actually growing in my relationship with God. And here's the thing - the Bible doesn't actually mention any of that. There is no perfect place or time or allotted requirement. God simply asks us to seek him and to delight in the Word.

So I abandoned my barely-used matte-highlighters and downloaded the Bible app on my phone. I didn't try to wake up before my kids, but instead I opened up that app and read while the baby took his bottle. I played the audio version while I folded laundry. It the plan I had in mind, but I found myself finishing books I'd never finished before. My kids grew.... and then one day the baby didn't need to take a morning bottle. Suddenly I was in a new season where I could sit and read my actual physical Bible and drink my coffee. It wasn't (and still isn't!) quiet. It probably won't be for many years. But that isn't what is important.

When I found my three-year-old with her "Baby's First Bible Stories" book and a notebook playing "Bible Time", I remembered that first time she cussed - the time I thought she wasn't paying attention. Just like I assumed she wasn't paying attention to what I was doing all those mornings that I let her watch cartoons just so I could read a chapter or two while the baby ate.

It was a funny realization. How would my kids know what it looked like to be in the Word every day if I was always hiding out in my room? I've always let them see me work out and eat my vegetables, and preached to them the importance of taking care of our bodies in hopes they would pick up healthy habits as adults. A hunger for the Word is certainly a healthy habit I want them to form, so why was I treating it any different? God took a messy, frustrating, and flat out exhausting season of my life and used it for His good without me even realizing it, as he so often does.

Maybe you, too, are in a season right now where you just "don't have time" to sit and read your Bible. I'd like to encourage you that you don't have to wait for that perfect time - that perfect quiet moment. What matters is that you just show up and let your kids see you keep showing up, day after day. It may just be the most important thing you ever do.

So, no, I no longer have "quiet time". I read my Bible and I pray for my sweet babies right there in the thick of the chaotic loudness that is motherhood. And right now, in this season, I wouldn't have it any other way.