Revive Our Hearts

Dannah Gresh: There's a helpful pattern Asheritah Ciuciu has noticed in the Psalms.

Asheritah Ciuciu: When you wake up in the morning, declare God's love over your day, His kindness. And then at night, when you lay in bed, reflect on the events of the day and look for the ways that He was faithful. Then posture your heart in thankfulness for that.

Dannah Gresh: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, author of A Place of Quiet Rest, for August 14, 2026. I'm Dannah Gresh.

A major theme you'll often hear on Revive Our Hearts is the importance of spending time with the Lord on a daily basis. That's because we're truly prone to wander, as the hymn says, and we need to recalibrate our souls each and every day. We need regular communion with our heavenly Father.

But here's the problem: for busy moms, getting time alone with God can be so difficult. Today, we're going to hear from some moms with lots on their plates. They'll be sharing their tips and strategies and frustrations when it comes to devotions amid the diapers.

The voices you're about to hear are women with a public ministry of some sort. They're authors, podcasters, speakers, and, yes, wives and moms, too. They gathered at the Revive Our Hearts headquarters in Michigan to encourage one another. Here's our host, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, to start us off.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: What has been something in your personal devotional life that has recently or in the past been a practice that you have found helpful in terms of keeping you close to the feet of Jesus? Somebody would like to—yes, Asheritah.

Asheritah Ciuciu: This is Asheritah, and this year and the last two years, we've been reading the Bible around the breakfast table with my three children, six and under. The one question that I've started asking myself and then asking them has really helped me focus my heart on why we do this: what is one thing that we learn about Jesus?

Sometimes it's so easy to get caught up in head knowledge and doing Greek and Hebrew studies and all these observations and everything. I walk away, but my adoration hasn't grown; my head just puffs up with knowledge. Bringing it down to that one question that even my three-year-old can answer and say, "What is one thing that I learn about Jesus here, and what is one thing I want to say in response? How can I respond to Him?" That has always brought me back to adoration.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: Love that.

Guest (Female): It's been a harder season with Bible reading in the morning because my husband and I set our alarms at 5:15, and then my daughter wakes up at like 5:30. I'm like, "Lord, I don't think I can get up any earlier than 5:15." So it's been a challenge because having the season before kids of lingering in the Word for an hour and having that time to do the more in-depth study has been a challenge.

I've just been leaving my Bible open on the kitchen counter. It seems like a really simple thing, but having it in a room where I'm there most of the day, in and out, has been helpful for keeping my eyes fixed on what I read that morning. The Spirit recalls it to my mind, and I think it also prompts me as a mom to weave it into my conversations with my daughter. So that's been helpful just to keep it visible there.

Eileen Merk: This is Eileen Merk. Over the summer, I took a break and listened to hardly anything else and just listened and read God's Word. It was so helpful, even when I was driving, folding laundry, cooking, taking a shower, just having God's Word playing all the time.

I realized just how much time I actually do have. Even though I could not necessarily study in depth, the Lord was bringing out these patterns and these repeated words. I was seeing the big story of God's Word and of redemption from beginning to end. It was coming alive in different ways and things about God that are so consistent from the beginning to the end. So it was just really helpful to be listening. I prefer to read because I'm more of a visual learner, but listening was bringing out things that I would not have noticed otherwise.

Guest (Male): Hunter, I think you're the one maybe that I heard about the Dwell Bible app from. If you're not familiar with that, get that app. I recommend getting a lifetime subscription because you're going to need this all your life to be able to listen to the Scripture. You can listen to it with different voices, with different music or no music, and I've found that just really ministering a lot of grace.

I've been listening to Psalm 119 and the book of Philippians over and over and over again on the Dwell app and really loving it. Listening to the Word—which, by the way, for generations was the only way most people could get the Word—we miss some of that today.

Guest (Female): I guess three things. First thing, prayer. Having a consistent daily time in prayer. I know when we're busy we have a tendency to say quick prayers while in route here or there, but my sister-in-law and my mother-in-law and I committed to 30 days of prayer at the same time every night.

For me, that has been such a life-changing thing. I think that we can sometimes be very lax when it comes to fervent prayer, connecting head, heart, and mind. Pray and carve out that time, even if it's at night, consistently praying every day. Also, beginning and ending your day with God. What that looks like day-to-day may change.

My devotional time during the morning is probably just going through the scriptures, reading a couple of verses, a quick prayer, and then out the door to work. But then at the end of my day, I end my day with God, and that may be more in-depth inductive study or something like that. I think it's very important to begin your day with God and to end your day with God.

Worship through song, I think, is always very helpful. Do you just sing to Jesus? That is such a way to just worship Him and to express your adoration to Him and just sit at His feet. Even when I'm in between my study time or my prayer time, like when I'm at work, I try to have worship music playing or songs that I can sing. That really just helps to lighten my heart and to help me get through the day when I'm stressed out at work and everybody's working on my nerves. It keeps me focused on the things of God.

Guest (Female): Just one brief thing. Scripture is always primary of importance, but I've found it really helpful to supplement with my devotional time afterwards to read Puritan writers' devotions. They have such a richness in the way that they wrote, and they captured truths that I feel like are swimming in my head, but I haven't been able to put in a way that I grasp.

I can't tell you the amount of times that Spurgeon or Richard Sibbs—the list could go on of all the old dead guys that are so good at putting those things in words—Andrew Murray was one I quoted in Kyler. They're usually short, and they just have these word pictures that I'm like, "Oh, that just captures it for me." It makes my Bible reading time illuminate in a new way, which has been really helpful for me.

Paula: Last week, I had the privilege of having Carrie Gaul lead me through some devotions. She did an exercise that I have never done before that I hope to continue to do. She gave us all a paper that has feeling words written down.

There are some main categories like mad, sad, glad, and then under that, there are all these different variations. You look on the sheet and you find what word describes you at that moment, and then you just bring that to God in prayer. I found that to be so helpful, and then just ask God to speak into that. Obviously, He speaks authoritatively only through His Word, but it was a really helpful exercise every morning.

Mary Kassian: I actually started off as an NIV 84 girl, and then when ESV came out, I switched to ESV and I've been using that since and I use that in teaching a lot. But just within the last year, I just switched over to the Christian Standard Bible, and I just found that switching a version of the Bible has just brought it alive for me in a whole different way.

The wording is different, a little bit more poetic, a little bit of a different texture and feel to it. Seeing things that by the time you're through it in the same version several times, it becomes so familiar. Reading it in an unfamiliar way and yet in a solidly, doctrinally sound version is really helpful for me. Just switching a Bible version even for a year or two is just a suggestion.

Guest (Female): I would just affirm that and say my newest, most prized possession is this CSB Bible, which I had not read through. I'm an ESV girl, but this CSB journaling Bible has been what a treasure to me, just journaling responses and study.

The writing is so tiny; nobody will ever be able to read it. I'm actually having it transcribed because when I get to teaching on some of these passages, it can become some fodder for me. But it's such a joy, and it's making me slow down and read more meditatively and prayerfully. I'm catching and seeing things I've never seen before in going through the Bible many times. So the whole practice of journaling through the Bible is something I highly recommend.

Betsy Gomez: I am Betsy Gomez. In this season of life, I'm really busy and my hands are full. I know this, but it's been great to remind myself that I don't need to check boxes, but to develop a devotional posture.

Trying to find ways that my awe for God will grow as I see my baby or as I look to the sky. That's so basic and simple, and we are supposed to know these things, but for me, I tend to feel the accomplishment of, "Oh, I studied the Bible, and look at all my highlighters and all that." It's harder for me to do the simple thing of having a devotional posture and not expecting a perfect moment to arrive to praise the Lord or just to ask for forgiveness, or even having the constant prayer of, "Lord, give me a heart that is surrendered to You all the time." At times I find that it's harder to have an ongoing devotional posture than just one moment.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I'd love to hear from moms of littles, or moms who had littles at one time, about just the devotional practice and anything that's been encouraging or helpful to you. Are you going that way, or are you going to go a different way? Okay, good.

Asheritah Ciuciu: To piggyback on what Betsy said because I've been in that season for the last six years. Something that a friend of mine taught me to do out of the Psalms—I can't remember which one it is—but it says that it is good to declare God's lovingkindness in the morning and His steadfastness at night.

The way she broke it down for me was to say, "Asheritah, when you wake up in the morning, declare God's love over your day, His kindness. That that is what you will find, whether you're changing the baby's diaper or you're making food or you're writing a blog post or you're serving your husband. Just look for His lovingkindness in your day."

And then at night, when you lay in bed, reflect on the events of the day and look for His steadfastness. Look for the ways that He was faithful, and then posture your heart in thankfulness for that. That has become such a gentle and yet incredible way to see God's lovingkindness at work in my life. Again, being in God's Word, obviously, there's no substitute for that, but His Word then comes alive as I see the ways that He has met me in those moments. So I keep coming back to that, declaring His lovingkindness in the morning and His steadfastness at night.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I love that.

Guest (Male): I love that. Asheritah, you couldn't remember the reference off the top of your head, but in case others want to look it up, check out Psalm 92:1-2.

Emily Jensen: Emily Jensen. I just really appreciate what Betsy said about developing just a heart posture of devotion in all the different things we do throughout the day. So specifically for me, I've noticed that I don't think I have any more free spaces to open up that aren't filled with things, but I try to find ways that I can add or kind of redeem that time for something that is devotional towards the Lord or includes His Word.

This is super nitty-gritty and practical, but I keep verses or cards in my car so that on the way to and from school drop-off, I can pray while I'm driving. It's just a set time every day that I have to do it and I get to pray while I do it. So we do a lot of things like that.

I would also just note that with a devotional mindset, when I'm reading Scripture to our kids or I'm doing an activity with them, sometimes it can feel like, "Okay, this is for them." But realize, no, this is God's Word to me too, and I can get just as much food and nourishment. I'm not just wearing my teacher hat; I'm wearing my learning hat, and I get to learn alongside them. So I just really view that, if I miss my time in the morning, it can still be my time when I'm having that time with them.

Dannah Gresh: And lots on the Risen Motherhood podcast about this kind of thing.

Laura Wifler: I'm Laura Wifler. I echo much of what Em said and what all of you guys have said. A couple of practical things for me is also utilizing the car ride to school. I catechize my kids on the way, and my son is six, just learning to read, and now he asks me the questions and reads them out of the book and finds it just awesome to be able to read and test Mom and see if she's right.

So that's something that's really fun and just reminds me of great truths. We use the New City Catechism. The second thing, I love to read. I think I'm willing to bet everyone in this room absolutely loves to read, and I'm amazed at how I can find a lot of time to read in small moments or before bed.

Something that I've been trying to challenge myself with is to read one book of the Bible a week. A lot of times that happens on Sunday when I started to implement a true Sabbath and not trying to squeeze in work or other things, but truly to say, "Okay, I've napped time every Sunday," and to sit down and read a book of the Bible. Admittedly, the epistles see some action more maybe than some of the others, but it's been really helpful to sit down and read through the whole book of Deuteronomy at one time and just reflect and think on that. That's been just a great way to cull through large portions of Scripture at one time and to say I'm not going to read another book for fun right now, but instead to choose God's Word in those moments.

Judy Dunagan: Judy Dunagan. Back when my girls were only three and six, our family was moving to Beijing, China, for my husband's job, and I was full of a lot of fear. This was back in '95, and healthcare there was nonexistent if you had an emergency.

Before we went, my girls, especially my six-year-old, was nervous about moving there. So we just learned Joshua 1:9 together, and we'd use motions even. It was, "Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." We memorized that before we moved there, and within the first month we were there, we were all very, very sick, just really bad upper respiratory with the pollution in the dead of winter.

So we're in our hotel room—we hadn't found a place to live yet—and we recited that together. I'm tearing up, my girls hopefully didn't notice, but it was really more for me, I think, than them. So just something that simple with your child, with what they're going through, to learn when they're anxious or scared, that God's Word is alive.

Another thing we used, the Alphabet Praise, where you just go through the alphabet and different names or attributes of God. My girls learned to do this pretty young. We'd just do it in those fearful times when we moved, and just "You're Almighty, You're Beautiful, You're Compassionate," and we'd go around and do that, which was really sweet.

One other thing I wanted to mention is Sarah's testimony, and I shared some of mine. In that season when you're in really deep sorrow or trials and you're questioning, when we were there, the Holy Spirit whispered to my heart just through the Word to turn to a sacrifice of praise. Almost like, "Can you praise Me even in this?"

I really didn't understand that at the time, but out of obedience, I started to do that in my journal. I would just be writing down His faithfulness in the past, even though in the midst of the sorrow and all the trials, it was hard to see Him. It was amazing how that rescued me from despair. I believe that turning to praise and worship in the midst of trials, the enemy has to flee because he can't, when you're worshipping, he has to leave you alone. I just made it simple in my journal. I'd write "Sacrifice of Praise" at the top of my page and just start writing those different things that I could see His faithfulness even if I had to reach back. Psalm 77's a great Psalm to see that. The first half of the Psalm, the psalmist is just crying out and really complaining, and then it says, "But I will remember the deeds of the Lord" right in the middle of the Psalm, and then he starts listing all of His faithfulness and how God had been faithful to him in the past.

Sarah Walton: Sarah Walton. In all honesty, this has been a struggle for me for many years. I'm in a little bit of a different place now, but for a lot of years, I struggled with a lot of guilt and a law-based feeling like I was falling short.

I felt frustrated because it felt like the Lord had given me an impossible situation to be filled with His Word. I would hear lots of my friends who had devotions around the table, and if we tried, it would set my son off. And so we couldn't have normal—in my mind what felt normal or what I expected.

And so there was a lot of realizing that what we might think is the standard we want to live up to, that the Lord dictates that and we are not. It can be just so easy to fall back into law-based living even subtly. I really had to learn that the Lord's faithful in those seasons, too. If He's given you a season that you literally can make no changes—there are usually ways we can make small changes—but sometimes there are situations that you don't have control over. Trust Him that if He has you there, He will be faithful to provide in those seasons.

But beyond that, it really was trusting the Lord in those small moments that I just needed Him to meet me in that place and realizing that He was not only going to be with me when I sat down with a pretty little picture of my Bible open and a journal next to me. A lot of times He met me the most was recalling Scripture. Kind of like when you're in a desert and you don't have the water, just that He poured into me what I couldn't do myself in that season. So just a grace over those who are in that place, that the Lord knows you're in that place. It's not that we shouldn't evaluate what can I change if possible, but that we can trust Him to provide what we need in those moments, too, even if it looks different than we thought it would.

Abigail Dodds: I'm Abigail Dodds. I'm reflecting on the years of littles and trying to be in God's Word during that time. One thing I've just heard recurring, and I'm sure many of you have too, is that a lot of times women will come into motherhood having spent time in God's Word that's very precious and they have a particular idea of what that looks like.

So their devotions are what I would call a feast. They've learned how to be a chef and to prepare this feast for themselves. And now all of a sudden they're in motherhood and they're like, "I'm eating spiritual mac and cheese, and I feel like a failure and I'm going backwards."

And so I just think helping women to see that learning to eat mac and cheese when it's the season of mac and cheese is not going backwards in maturity. That's actually the mature thing to do. Keep eating. Keep eating. Don't stop eating. The biggest hindrance that I see over and over, and I've experienced it, is then there's guilt because now I'm not having the feast that I had before, so I must be doing something wrong or I missed it.

What I hope to remind myself continually and anyone else is because you didn't eat yesterday is not a good reason to not eat today. Because your meal is not a feast is not a good reason to not eat what God has given you today to eat. Just eat. It's all grace and be thankful for whatever He's given you. Then be amazed at that little thing, that mac and cheese, and the way it sustained you and you actually feel better than you did when you were eating the feast. Isn't it something that He can do that with mac and cheese meals?

And so the last thing I would just say is be humble enough to let other people feed you. It is so humiliating to feel like you're being spoon-fed by someone else your meals from the Word. But there have been times when my husband reading the Word has been the food that has come in, or hearing someone else say it, maybe on a podcast, maybe I'm just listening to Pastor John on Solid Joys, but saying, "You know what? I'm so weak right now. I need somebody to spoon-feed me." Just receive it and put the guilt away and receive it, and He will do and make loaves and fishes that you can't imagine from that meal. So, no guilt.

Paula: My boys are two and a half and eight months old, and so we're starting to learn some songs. We have five songs that we sing every day, and one is just—I've edited this song as we go, so can I sing to you? I really miss my sons, so.

(Singing) Oh, what a beautiful morning. Oh, what a beautiful day. I have the wonderful knowledge everything's going God's way.

Anyway, we just tweak and edit normal songs and it's just a lot of fun to sing them to each other.

Dannah Gresh: Today we've heard from a dozen different women who were part of the Sisters in Ministry gathering, including Abigail Dodds with that spiritual mac and cheese analogy. I thought that was so helpful.

Now, I'm not a mom, but all these women are busy moms at various stages of life and parenting. They were helping us know how they spend time with the Lord every day in prayer and in His Word, especially in the midst of the many demands of motherhood.

You know, Nancy, I think our featured resource this month is going to be just such a joy for moms with littles. It's an adorable photobook called Finding Beauty in Every Season, featuring photography from our staff and quotes from Nancy. This resource invites you to find goodness right where you are, during the diaper years and beyond.

To give and request your copy, visit reviveourhearts.com or call us at 1-800-569-5959. We've got lots of episodes in our archives that feature the moms you heard today. We'll link some of those in today's transcript. So if you're feeling hungry for more encouragement like you heard today, head to reviveourhearts.com.

This week, we've been talking about motherhood in the little years. Next week, we're encouraging moms with older kids. So if you're navigating the teen years or anticipating them, maybe with fear and trepidation, we've got a week filled with practical encouragement ready for you. I hope you'll join us for that. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.