Hello! Hope you all enjoyed your Pesach! It was a wonderful holiday for us, very busy but very satisfying and now I’m trying to put my house back together and still function somehow when I can barely find anything in my kitchen.
But life moves forward, as do deadlines, and today I have another piece up on Hevria! It’s about control, more specifically, our lack of it, and how that affects and informs my relationship with prayer, and, more to the point, my relationship with G-d.
I hope you enjoy it, and I wish us all success in getting back into the swing of things.
Rivki Silver ~ thoughts & music 
Ah, Rivki, I always enjoy your writing and this piece certainly resonates with me at this time. I just had my third child and the exhaustion from trying to get the chaos in order/adjust mixed with Pesach thrown in has been a whirlwind. I most definitely can feel the lack of control! However, unlike you, I have just continued to push through and still struggle to find the time to incorporate prayer. Maybe you could offer ideas on how one could do this? I mean aside from illness, when a human goes into survival mode, it can be hard to direct one’s self out of such a rut. I’d love to hear anyone’s ideas.
Thank you so much for your kind words and taking the time to leave a comment! Mazel tov on your new addition, the timing is super intense. In your situation right now I would definitely not try to do any sort of prayer from a siddur, I would just set an alarm on my phone or some other reminder to just talk to Hashem at one or two points during the day. Like when you’re feeding your baby, just say a bit of praise, thanks and a request (or just talk, whatever works for you).
I honestly have not even thought about formal davening until this year, when my youngest is in school for several hours during the day, and even then I do not often succeed. My main goal is to remember Hashem is there, Hashem is in control, and to build the connection between us, and to not beat myself up when I forget to do this.
Motherhood and housekeeping (and for many, working outside the home as well) can be very monotonous and tiring and make it easy to get in a rut, so I would say reward yourself for the times you remember to connect and cut yourself slack when you don’t.
I hope this is helpful! Good luck!