REST IS NOT IDLENESS, AND TO LIE SOMETIMES ON THE GRASS UNDER THE TREES ON A SUMMER’S DAY LISTENING TO THE MURMUR OF WATER, OR WATCHING THE CLOUDS FLOAT ACROSS THE SKY, IS BY NO MEANS A WASTE OF TIME.

—SIR T. LUBBOCK

Introduction

Longing for Time with God

Shortly after we were married, Evan and I lived in a cozy little ranch-style house. My favorite part of the house was the kitchen—the kitchen window to be exact. In those days, before children, I often spent time at that kitchen window with God, gazing out at petunias in summer and golden aspen in fall. Unhurried and uninterrupted, these times with God fed my soul.

The spring of my daughter’s birth brought the highlight view. While washing dishes one day, I looked up to find a bird building a nest on the roof beam of our covered patio. Twig after twig, branch after branch, she flew away and back until her messy makings revealed a cuplike wreath of safety. Home.

Over the next few weeks, I watched her hunker down over her eggs, leaving only for the briefest moments. She received visits from another sparrow—Daddy, I presumed. One day, scrawny heads popped up over the edge of the nest and, with open-mouthed demands, welcomed themselves into the world. For weeks I’d climb up on my kitchen counter, watch the birds, and enjoy God’s creation.

We have since moved from that house. Today the view from my kitchen sink has changed. As I wash dishes, I watch handstands and somersaults, not birds and nature. Instead of golden aspens, I gawk at the TV. I sort through my mental to-do list and often find prayer left untouched at the end of the day.

Children have changed my freedom to spend time with God. Where once I had easy access to him, now noise and busyness and, well, children stand in my way.

I suspect most moms share my struggle. Caught between the demands of sports activities, homework, church programs, and a desire to provide decent meals and family time, most of us have precious little left for God. When’s the last time you prayed without falling asleep? or journaled about God’s work in your life? or read your Bible without interruption?

In Psalm 84:1–2, the psalmist writes of a similar plight:

How lovely is your dwelling place,

O LORD Almighty!

My soul yearns, even faints,

for the courts of the LORD;

my heart and my flesh cry out

for the living God.

In this pilgrimage psalm, written to be sung by those traveling to the temple to make restitution for their sins and to worship God, the psalmist writes of a longing of the heart for God. Because the Old Testament required a high priest to make sacrifices for specific sins, worshipers longed for the temple and the priest so they could obtain forgiveness and access to God.

Verse three goes on,

Even the sparrow has found a home,

and the swallow a nest for herself,

where she may have her young—

a place near your altar,

O LORD Almighty, my King and my God.

The psalmist envies the birds who nest daily in the temple and therefore enjoy a daily presence in God’s dwelling.

Mothers are among today’s faint of heart who long for a time with God. While we no longer need a high priest to provide the forgiveness Christ offers through his death on the cross, we still long for the “temple” of time with God. Parent pilgrims grow weary and cry out for God.

This book is about taking a tip from the swallow in the psalm. She built her nest in a place near God’s altar. She lived where God lived. We moms who long for God don’t have to go somewhere special to find him. We can spend time with God when we build a nest near him and then enjoy everyday moments in it with him.

The following meditations are written to help you find moments with God in the midst of a busy nest. They’re short and simple, so you can fit them into your day. At the same time, their messages are designed to stir your thoughts during these days and offer you calm and perspective in your daily life. Accompanying each meditation are questions to ponder called “Feather Your Nest,” as well as a prayer for the day.

It’s true that we can see God’s presence in our lives through many illustrations from creation: the changing weather, animals, the mountains, the ocean. Somehow the pictures of a nest and nesting uniquely capture the challenges mothers face in raising and feeding their young while in desperate need of food themselves.

It’s been over six years since we moved into our present house. My son, Ethan, just built a birdhouse with his dad. When it came time to hang it up, there was no question as to where it should go: on the deck outside the breakfast room window. If I raise the blinds, stand on tiptoe, and crane my neck just right, I can see it from the kitchen sink.