The Motions of Motherhood

by Abbie Halberstadt

“These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.”—Deuteronomy 6:6-7 (NIV) 

The Lord, through Moses, is establishing the parameters for daily liturgy—a commonplace catechism of worship that requires no church building or rites more sacred than the everyday practices of a family at work and play together. Verse 7 underscores the importance of this concept when it mentions specific activities we do while instructing our children: sitting, walking, lying down, getting up.

When you sit: Our family does Bible reading together most mornings at 7:30 a.m. Although, to be fair, not everyone is sitting. The littles are just as likely to be standing on their heads or trotting around under my feet as I make eggs in the kitchen that opens to our living room where we read. We must also often remind the older kids to “sit up” from the somnolent slumps on the couch that characterize many teenagers’ posture for the first thirty minutes after they roll out of bed. Regardless of lack of perfect sitting etiquette, this consistent habit is just one example of “impressing” God’s ways on our children as we sit. 

When you walk: I have fond childhood memories of evening strolls with my brother, mom, and dad to the tiny municipal airport a mere half mile from our home. As twilight spread like a humid blanket over East Texas nights, the stars would begin to wink their way to life in the dusky sky, and we would flop down on deserted, pebble-strewn runways and gaze upward—the better to comprehend: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands” (Psalm 19:1 BSB).

When you lie down: As a homeschooling family who spends hours together talking, reading, working, and playing each day, we eschew drawn-out bedtime sto­ries or evening bath-time rituals in favor of potty, water, teeth, hugs, and kisses. But we do leave space for the inevitably chatty child whose greatest life questions always bubble to the surface right before his eyes flutter shut in exhaustion. Our eighth-born, Shiloh, is notorious for whipping out questions like “Does God have legs?” right at bedtime.

And I would be remiss if I skipped over those infant nighttime feedings dur­ing which, though unable to expound deep truths to our tiny ones as we fill their bellies, we can pray for them or others and preach, without words, the care of their heavenly Father in our devotion to them.

When you get up: If you, like me, have awakened to wailing coming from one of your small children’s rooms two hours before your alarm is set to go off, then you know the process of “getting up” can be one of the most sanctifying experiences in parenting. Mornings are often strewn with the land mines of too-early risers, cranky toddlers, teens who ignore their alarms and are late for work, and a mad rush to get out the door for jobs or school. We have the opportunity as we rise to declare God’s grace sufficient for for­gotten lunches and missed carpools, sleep deprivation and burnt breakfast.

Clearly, the parental mandate found in these verses requires, if not constant vigilance, at least a willingness to view each aspect of our days as an occasion for godly instruction (for our children), growth (for us and them), and worship.

Abbie Halberstadt is a writer, fitness instructor and homeschooling mother of ten children, including two sets of identical twins. Abbie lives by the motto that “hard is not the same thing as bad” and encourages women to dig deep to meet the challenges of everyday life through her blog and Instagram posts.