The Spiritual Weight of Small Things: Finding Sacredness in the Mundane Chaos of Parenting

I found a dried piece of oatmeal on the back of my shirt collar after the sacrament prayer last Sunday and I sat there in the pew feeling it with my fingers and wondering how long it had been there and who saw it and whether it mattered. The toddler had been sitting on my shoulders for most of the opening hymn and the second grader was tracing letters on the program with her finger and the teenager was looking at the ceiling like she was calculating how much longer this would take. And there I was with oatmeal on my collar and goldfish crumbs in my hair and a feeling that I had shown up to church already behind.

I think that is where most of us live most of the time. Behind. Not quite caught up. Running on a delay where the spiritual life we imagined looks different from the one we are actually living.

Here is what I keep coming back to when I think about that verse from Alma about small and simple things. The Lord said that by small and simple things are great things brought to pass and I think I believed that for a long time without understanding what it meant. I thought it meant that small good habits would eventually lead to big spiritual results like compound interest in a savings account. And that is true as far as it goes. But I have started to wonder if the small things are not just the path to the great things but the great things themselves happening in real time right in the middle of the mess.

The verse is Alma 37:6 and I have read it a hundred times. But last Tuesday afternoon when I was standing at the sink washing the same cup I had washed four times that day I heard it differently. The small and simple thing was the cup. And the great thing was that I was still standing there doing it.

How to Find the Spirit in the Chaos of Parenting

I spent years believing that the Spirit preferred quiet rooms and folded hands and a certain kind of reverent stillness that my home has never been able to produce for more than about ninety seconds. I thought the presence of noise meant the absence of the Spirit and I read that absence as a failure in me. If I was more patient or more organized or more faithful the house would settle down and the peace would descend and I would finally feel what I was supposed to feel.

But that is not how it works with four children under one roof. The toddler does not stop crying because I need to pray and the teenagers do not stop being complicated because I need a quiet moment to feel connected. The Spirit shows up in the middle of the noise not after it stops. I have felt it in the middle of a toddler tantrum when I stopped trying to fix it and just sat down on the floor and waited. I have felt it during a rushed dinner when everyone was talking over each other and I looked around and realized I was surrounded by people I love.

A post on Small and Holy: The Sacredness of Micro-Traditions helped me understand that the Spirit does not require perfect conditions to operate. It only requires a willing heart and a willing heart looks a lot like a tired mother washing the same cup for the fifth time.

Applying Alma 37 6 to Daily Motherhood

I taught third grade for five years before I had children and I remember how satisfying it was to see measurable progress. A child who could not read in September was reading by December and I could point to the exact evidence of growth. Motherhood does not work that way. You change a diaper and it needs changing again. Someone puts a sticky hand on the counter after you wipe it. And you keep saying the same thing about keeping shoes on the floor and the shoes stay on the floor for about an hour.

By small and simple things are great things brought to pass. -- Alma 37:6

On the surface none of that looks like measurable improvement but I am starting to see that the small things in parenting are not small at all. They are the only things. The patience you find in the moment you want to lose your temper is a great thing. So is the consistency of a bedtime prayer when you are exhausted. The quiet act of forgiveness after a sibling fight is a great thing happening right there in the kitchen.

The article on The Quiet Faith That Grows When Nobody Is Watching talks about how real spiritual growth happens in the unseen spaces. That is where mothers live. In the unseen spaces. And I think the Lord sees them differently than we do.

LDS Perspective on Finding Sacredness in Housework

I used to think my spiritual life started after the dishes were done. The real work of discipleship happened in scripture study and temple attendance and formal service projects and everything else was just the maintenance that had to happen before I could get to the important part. But I have been sitting with the idea that homemaking itself is a form of worship. Not because the house is holy but because the people inside it are and the work you do to care for them is a physical expression of love.

I think about the table I have wiped down for twelve years. Twelve years of crumbs and spilled milk and homework papers and craft glue. Twelve years of wiping the same surface over and over while the people I love sat around it and grew up and argued and laughed and told me things I will never forget. That table has an altar to me now. Not because of the wood but because of what happened on top of it.

When I wash the laundry or sweep the floor or pack the same lunch for the fourth day in a row I am participating in something that looks a lot like stewardship. I am making a space where my family can feel safe and loved and fed. Spiritual work does not have to look different from wiping a counter. It can look exactly like that.

How to Have a Peaceful Sabbath with Young Children

I have a confession to make about Sunday mornings and it is that I used to dread them. The rush to get everyone dressed and fed and out the door before the opening hymn. Small limbs being wrestled into uncomfortable shoes. The whispered negotiations in the pew about whether we could survive another thirty minutes. I would walk to the car feeling like I had already failed before the sacrament was even over.

But a friend told me something once that shifted the whole thing. She said that when she was raising her young children she stopped measuring the Sabbath by how the children behaved and started measuring it by how she responded to them. The peace of the Sabbath was not in the silence of her children. It was in her own patience when the silence broke.

That new perspective changed how I see Sunday mornings in a way I did not expect. The toddler who refuses to sit still is giving me a chance to practice patience. A spilled cup during the blessing is an opportunity to practice grace. And the whispered argument in the pew is a classroom where I learn to respond with love instead of frustration. The Sabbath was made for man and that includes tired mothers wrestling children into church clothes. The peace of the Sabbath is not the absence of noise. It is showing up anyway and letting the Lord meet you there.

Frequently Asked Questions

How can I feel the Spirit when my house is chaotic and I feel overwhelmed?

Stop looking for the Spirit in the quiet spaces and start looking for it in the way you respond to the chaos. The Spirit is not hiding from your noise. It is present in the patience you find when you should have lost your temper and in the love that keeps you washing dishes for people who will never thank you for it. That is where the Spirit lives in a house full of children.

Is it a failure of faith if my family's Sabbath is not peaceful and reverent?

Not at all. Reverence is a growth process and children are not born with it. A Sabbath spent practicing patience and forgiveness and love in the middle of the noise is often more spiritually productive than one spent enforcing a silence that nobody feels. Show up. Try again because that is what faithfulness looks like.

How do small and simple things actually lead to great things in parenting?

The small things are the great things in slow motion. Every consistent bedtime prayer builds a foundation that a child will remember. Every patient response to a tantrum teaches a child what love looks like in real time. You do not have to wait for the great things to arrive later. They are happening right now in the small things you are already doing.

I still find oatmeal on my collar sometimes and I still feel a flicker of embarrassment when I notice it. But I am learning to look at it differently. The oatmeal is evidence that I held a child close enough to transfer breakfast onto my shirt. A small and simple thing that contains a great thing inside it.

with love, Melissa