When I became a Christian in the 1980s, it was impressed upon me by my evangelical friends that I must begin each day with a "Quiet Time", a time of Bible reading and prayer. "Sounds like a good idea", I thought, and so I hurried off to buy some Bible reading notes and set my clock half an hour earlier.

It wasn't long though before it became a bit of a burden. Sit bleary-eyed clutching a cup of coffee, trying to work out who I am and why I set my alarm for such an unearthly hour. Open with a prayer, scan through the Bible reading, don't make a lot of sense of it, anyhow I've read it so it must be doing me good, look at the Bible notes, what's it on about, I don't know. Right, what's next, oh yes, ACTS, that's what they told us at the Christian Union meeting.

Adoration. Mutter a few words I remember hearing in a prayer meeting once, about God's majesty and grace.
Confession. Search my mind for real or imagined sins, and work myself into a state of trauma regarding my guilt. What's the point of carrying on, I'm such a miserable sinner God won't want to know me now.
Thanksgiving. Um... er...Thank you Lord for... um.. showing me what a miserable sinner I am.
Supplication. OK here we go, this is bit where I really get down to prayer. Get out the shopping list, I mean prayer letters, prayer diaries, copy of Operation World, gradually work my way down the lists. Lord, please do this, bless that, prosper the work of so-and-so, give grace to such-and-such, etc, etc.

Look at my watch, oh good, I can go and have some breakfast soon. Thank God all that's over.

Of course every Monday, I had the same old "sin" to confess in addition to all the others, that of getting up so late at the weekend that I didn't have time to have a Quiet Time. Guilt and more guilt. And an extra two Bible passages to read because I didn't read them on Saturday and Sunday. What a drag. But I've got to do it because, well, because I've got to.
I kept up this act for years, believing that If I didn't set aside 30 minutes to an hour each morning, that was it for the day. God couldn't possibly want to see me later in the day. If I'd missed my appointment before breakfast, it was too late. 
Then I had my first baby. I've never been good at mornings at the best of times, and this, I assure you, was not the best of times. After being woken up at least three times during the night, and feeling like something from "Night of the Living Dead" each morning, the last thing you feel like doing is applying yourself to the old Quiet Time Routine. And you can bet your life that within minutes of starting to pray, there'd be an outraged yell from the tyrant in the cot. And even if you did find time, when you looked at the Bible you were so tired that you'd go cross-eyed staring at the page and the immediate effect of closing your eyes to pray was deep, blissful sleep.
As time went on, my baby became a toddler, and then there was another baby. Two tiny beings who were dependent on me for everything. A never- ending round of feeding, nappy-changing, potty-training, protecting from harm, kissing better, trying umpteen different ways to stop a baby crying, trying to explain to the toddler that you can't play just now because the baby needs you, dealing with the tantrum that followed. Where was God in all this? I couldn't even give God my full attention in church because I always had to keep an eye on the babies. I felt a total failure as a Christian and as a parent.

Somewhere along the way I realised that God wasn't expecting me to jump through hoops. I began to see that my children could only do what they could do, I couldn't expect my baby to know by itself what was good or bad for it; I couldn't expect my toddler to understand that he was not actually the centre of the universe. If I, as a mere human being, could understand this, then surely God could understand that I was doing my best, and that was all he asked of me. When my child gives me a picture he's done himself, I don't point out to him that trees are not actually purple, and quibble over the lack of perspective. I say, "Thank you, darling, that's lovely. You did it for me". If my child's been busy playing and seems to forget I'm there, I don't when he suddenly wants a cuddle turn round and say "Go away, you're too late, you should have come to me before".

Didn't Jesus encourage us to call God "Father"? So why then do we sometimes behave as if he were some kind of almighty policeman? I now realise that God doesn't actually care what time of day we come to him as long as we come. You've heard of the phrase 'carpe diem' ('seize the day'). What I've had to learn to do is seize the moment.

There may not be any time at all for you to pray all morning. But maybe there's ten minutes or so you can grab in the afternoon while your child is having a nap or occupied quietly in her/his room with a puzzle. You'll probably find you have to banish from your mind the thought of the unwashed dishes, the toys all over the floor. You can find time to do those things later. But these few minutes you get to share with God are precious, and they may not come again.

What about when you just can't rid your mind of the random thoughts racing round your head? You may find it helpful to do some kind of centring exercise. This may be to imagine a marble whizzing round the edge of a bowl, gradually slowing down and coming to rest. This should have the effect of slowing you down to enable you to keep it on your goal, that is to be focussed on God. You could try a breathing exercise, repeating a short phrase, such as 'Christ my Lord... Christ my light', or 'In him we live and move and have our being' or the Jesus Prayer ('Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner'), or any phrase which means a lot to you, in the rhythm of your breath.

If there's no time until evening, then so be it. A useful exercise at the end of the day is to 're-live' the day with God. Cast your mind back to the way the day began. How was God with you? Is there anything you want to give thanks for? Anything you found a struggle? Talk it over in your mind with God. Try to discern what he might be saying to you.

And remember most of all how much God loves you. Imitate the Psalmist who wrote in Psalm 131:

"My heart is not proud, O LORD, my eyes are not haughty; I do not concern myself with matters or things too wonderful for me. But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me".

As you watch your child sleeping, totally at rest, trusting that no harm will come to her or him while you are there, rest in God in the same way. You don't always have to be talking, or reading, in his presence. Just sit and be at rest with God sometimes.

Our modern western society has got its values the wrong way round. It values people for what they achieve, but God values what we are, and what we are becoming in him. As parents of young children, we often feel there's so much to do that we feel overwhelmed, and we feel a failure when we don't achieve what we set out to do. We can learn a lot from our children when they are small. They live for the moment, enjoy things for their own sake, and find it the most natural thing in the world to stop what they're doing and wonder at the moon, or the flowers, or a wiggly worm. If we are too busy to share this with them, our lives will be the poorer for it. Jesus understood this about children, when he said, "The kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these", (Matt19:14).

I approached parenthood seeing it as a hindrance to my spiritual growth. What I didn't realise was that God uses all things to bring us closer to him. Sometimes, yes, we yearn and long for the days when we could do what we liked when we liked, when we could get on with things without interruptions. Sometimes we want to scream with frustration. God understands. But at the same time, God gives us through our parenthood a new way of living and a new way of looking at life. We may not get sermons preached about it. We may think we're the only ones who are struggling to adapt to this new way. But, and I know it's becoming a cliche, the Christian life is not a set of rules, but a journey we're making. At each stage the scenery and the terrain will be different. Parenthood, for those of us fortunate enough to experience it, is one stage of that journey. God will be our companion and our guide, every step of the way.

Ashwin Angela, Patterns not padlocks, Eagle, 1992. Essential reading if you're a parent. Especially written for parents of young children. Full of good ideas and encouragement.
Adam David, The cry of the deer, Triangle, 1987. An introduction to Celtic forms of prayer, with meditations on the prayer known as St Patrick's Breastplate. Includes exercises to try.
Bax Josephine, Help on the way: a guide to personal prayer, Lynx, 1997. Practical and readable, with poems by the author.
Hebblethwaite Margaret, Way of St Ignatius: Finding God in all things, Fount, 1987/99. An introduction to Ignatian prayer. Very readable and practical.
Houston James, The transforming friendship, Lion, 1989 Prayer as friendship with God.
Hughes Gerard, God of surprises, Darton, Longman and Todd, 2nd ed., 1996. A classic on prayer and spirituality.

Sacred Space This is a site designed and maintained by the Irish Jesuits. If you're not a Catholic, don't be put off by the "praying with the Pope" section. It is an excellent site to aid prayer following the Ignatian tradition. Prayers, Bible reading, meditation, helps, including pictures as aids to meditation.