Oops.  Big oops.  So much for my commitment to pray and to blog every day.  Five whole days I missed, at least with the blogging.  I did pray, though not every day.

Family emergency?  Natural disaster, you ask?  No, just everyday, routine stuff.  And lots of it.  I went to my first bead show.  I had a booth for the prayer beads at a local fall festival on Saturday.  Matthew had a party to go to.  The house was a complete mess.  Nothing earth-shattering.  Nothing that would proclude me from taking a few minutes to spend time with God, and then with you via blog.

Are you starting to get the picture?  Can you see better why I struggle with prayer?  As soon as life gets the least bit hectic I throw in the towel and just let the chaos flow.  This is the problem that has plagued me for a long time now, and it’s one of the reasons why my prayer life is constantly in a fit of starts and stops.  I start my day with a plan and very good intentions, but then one thing happens that was not in the plan, and then another, and suddenly, it’s bedtime and I can’t begin to tell you where my day went.   And I certainly can’t point to the time when I stopped to pray.

That’s tough for me.  As I’ve said before, I’m a Type A kind of gal who needs to be able to cross things off my ever-present list and feel accomplished.  And in control.  I don’t do well when life begins to veer from my plan (ha!  MY plan?!?).  And I certainly don’t pray.

Welcome to life, Kristen.  This is how it works.  It’s a good reminder that I really am not in control, no matter how smoothly my day goes.  It is a good time to remember that only God is in control. 

 And that’s actually a really good reason for me to pray every day, especially on the days when life appears chaotic.  Taking the time to sit and be with God is a way of confessing that I am not in control and acknowledging that God is.  It is a way of claiming that in good times and in bad, in times of chaos and in times of still waters, God is with me.  It is a way of giving myself over to God who has the power to control the stormy seas and the raging wind, so that I can once again feel grounded and better able to respond to the things that come at me on a daily basis, with God’s help.

So my commitment to daily prayers and daily blogs continues, even on the chaotic days.  I may not always make it, but hopefully, over time, I will get better at it, and eventually, it may even become second nature to me, and something that I don’t have to remember to do. 

Hopefully, I’ll see you tomorrow.