Last week was a long week.  On Monday my oldest son had ear surgery, my second son left our homeschool for Catholic schools, my mother in law came to help out with both of those transitions, my husband started the second year of his PhD program, and we celebrated two birthdays.  It was a busy week!

Busy weeks are easy weeks to get lost in.  It is easy to steal a few more moments of sleep or get up early for more hours in the day for laundry, dishes, and household tasks.  It is easy to put prayer aside for more productive work.  (I also find it is sometimes easy to put children aside in the same way when we get busy, but that is a topic for another post.)

One thing I’ve noticed about prayer is that God will find us even when we aren’t looking for Him.  Even when we are lost in our thoughts and our hurried lives, the Holy Spirit will sneak into our everyday lives if we are accustomed to looking.

For me this last week two such reminders snuck their way into a frantic Friday trip to the store for school supplies lost or forgotten.  Surrounded by four little ones who weren’t interested in anything more than finishing as quickly as possible, I took an extra moment to browse through the clearance section in case there was anything begging for a new home.  Suddenly my 8 year old pointed up at a small statue tipped over on its side and said, “Hey, Mom!  That looks like a saint!”

Sure enough, Saint Francis of Assisi had been knocked on his side between cast off vases and bath towels.  Moments later we found a small green wall hanging with the words, “Prayer Changes Things” scripted across a simple wooden plaque.