Four months ago I gave birth to a bouncing baby girl and, needless to say, life hasn't been the same since! The schedule of doing what I want, when I want, just doesn't seem to exist anymore─including my devotional time with God. As a Christian, I want and need to spend time with Christ each and every day by reading the Scriptures and praying to a loving and compassionate God, but since Alexis has come into the world, this aspect of my life has changed.

I used to spend my time singing songs like I Have a Maker or Your Love is Amazing, but now the melodies that come from my lips are more often “I love the pit pit patter of the raindrops” or You are My Sunshine.

As I sit in the rocking chair, singing and rocking Alexis to sleep each night, I cannot help but wonder: Do lullabies count? Does God consider this time to be devotional? Does he regard these activities as time spent with him as well? Or is it just a bonding opportunity between a mother and daughter?

I know that God has entrusted me to love, guard and raise my child in the ways of Christ, but I also know that I serve a God who does not want anything to come before him. And if honesty is the best policy, then I admit that the balance between my relationship with God and my relationship with my family has not been equal over the past four months.

Do I pause to thank God for the blessing of my family each day? Without a doubt, yes! Do I spend time with God each day? Definitely. But does this happen in the same way as it did before my daughter came along? Sadly, no. I guess the struggle for this new mother and officer is whether or not this is acceptable. If my devotional time is interrupted five times by a fussy baby, or my prayers are not said in a quiet, reverent space, does this matter to God?

In the depths of my heart I know that I am trying to keep my relationship with God alive and vibrant. I suppose the tension comes from the different way that my devotional time looks like now as the mother of a baby girl. Can children's songs enable me to worship God? Do lullabies count?

“I love the pit, pit patter of the raindrops. I love the buzz, buzz buzzing of the bees. But the thing I love the best, the very, very best, is to know that God loves me.”

Captain Ashley Bungay and her husband, Sheldon, are the corps officers of The New-Wes-Valley Corps in the Newfoundland and Labrador West Division. They were commissioned as Heralds of the Good News in 2007 and have a daughter, Alexis, who was born in November 2008. In her spare time Ashley likes to relax in front of the TV, scrapbook pictures of her family and take long walks. She is passionate about youth and young women's ministry, and her favourite Scripture passage is Jeremiah 17:7-8.