Let me just say this up front: I’m a busy mom.

I’m not a homeschooling mom (maybe more busy than me in her own right, yes) with long stretches of life spent at home supervising second grade math or Kindergarten phonics.

Neither am I a new mother wondering what I’ll do with the hours of the mornings and afternoons when my bubbly baby naps.

I’m the mother of school-aged children whose demands of time, emotional energy and car trips engulf my Monday through Friday days.

I drive to school, to the market, to dance lessons, to horse lessons. I walk the dog, feed the dog and try to keep the dog from eating a bunch of bananas or the cat. I help with homework, bandaids, baths and board games.  I make appointments, lunches and piles of laundry.

And in any spare time I try to move the words that live in my head into the right order so that they make sense to other people. I try to write.

Admittedly I haven’t always put the right things in the right priority order in my life. Some months I go whole weeks without truly listening to God. I’ve allowed spitting-up babies or more recently, elementary school field trips to suck my energy and motivation to spend intentional time listening to God.

I forget. Plainly, I forget about God sometimes.

Oh, it’s then when God arrests me. Not unlike a police officer who puts frowning adolescents in plastic handcuffs on the curb behind the cruiser while he searches the car for drugs or whatever, God stops me where I am, car keys in one hand, iPhone in the other, shocked look in my eyes.

Oh yes, Lord. I remember you.

It is then when I understand all over again the hand of grace I’ve been dealt, I remember the proximity of the Creator to my daily thoughts, and I understand that my busyness has really stolen something from God that rightfully belongs to Him.

I’m sorry, Lord.

So I begin again. I use natural open spots in my days to pray: driving home from preschool drop off, cool mornings when I walk the dog, the few minutes before the girls wake up when the only sound heard in the house is the cat padding toward her water dish.

I spend more time out of doors. I put down my computer for an hour and walk through the sand at the beach. I follow the girls through the woods near the park with my camera and listen for God’s voice and watch for the impression of His fingerprints on the spring flowers. I begin to hear him clearer.

And then I gravitate toward the poetry in the Bible (that’s always where I start over) and the words of the musicians and shepherds speak to me. I allow the intimacy of the Scripture to work in my heart once again.

I meditate on His faithfulness to me that, even as busy as I’ve been, He has remained the same.

* THANKS, SARAH. YOU CAN READ MORE OF SARAH’S SOULFUL WRITING ON HER BLOG.