When morning rolls around, I want nothing more than to bury myself deeper into my pillow and cover my head with my blanket and ignore the light coming through my windows. It's a hard knock life I tell ya.
Lately, however, I'm learning how important it is to start my day right by starting my morning right. If I have a late start in the morning, the rest of my day seems to be pretty unproductive and lazy. If I get up and get going at a decent hour (read 7 am), I am in a more productive mindset and those days seem to be very productive.So I find myself in quite a battle of wills here. I want so badly to be a morning person. I want to be abel to set my alarm and pop out of bed the first time it goes off. I want to get up early and work out, shower and read my Bible all before the kids get up. I want to be über productive and cheery in the mornings. But none of this comes naturally for me. Not by any stretch of the imagination. Now that I'm staying home, it's much harder to get myself up and at em' each morning because there is no specific place I have to be (unless it's doctor appointment days).
I think the only way I'm going to be able to achieve this goal will be by the power of God and His ability to perform miracles. It's imperative that I learn to make my mornings productive and be a better steward of this time God is giving me at home with my children. I also believe that God calls all mothers and wives to make the house a home. To make it a safe haven for the family. To make it peaceful and cheerful and a place the family looks forward to being in. This will not be possible if I wake up late everyday and the house is in constant disarray and messy. A messy, dirty house causes stress and is not a haven of peace and cheerfulness in any way, shape or form. I don't believe that this means we are expected to keep a perfect house. That's not possible when you have little kids. I do believe we are to do our best with what we are given and make our house as homy as possible though.
I've been reading a book called "Uniquely Woman" by Kay Arthur and it addresses the issue of making your house a home. It's been a wonderful book so far and I'm looking forward to reading more. She writes about things like "living on purpose" and other things that we forget to do when we're down in the trenches of motherhood and housewife-hood each day. It's hard to see beyond that at times, so we need someone to remind us that this is a calling from the Lord. We are making a difference with every mess we clean up, every dirty diaper we change, each bag of trash we take out to the curb, each peanut butter and jelly sandwich we make, every tear we wipe from our toddler's cheek, every bottle we make, and every crayon/marker scribbling we clean up from our couches and TVs (this specifically happened to me this week!).
I've now been inspired to make each morning count. To get up and read my Bible first thing. To make my coffee and drink it from my new coffee mug that my church gave all the mother's for Mother's Day (mine has the word Hope on it and a verse that speaks of hope). To spend one on one time with each of my daughters, even when there are other things that are piling up for me to do. To make my husband a cup of coffee and greet him with a cheerful smile, love in my eyes and a kiss before he heads out for a long day of hard work. To enjoy the beautiful days the Lord gives us. To appreciate the simple, small house we are blessed to live in.
Will every morning go as planned? No, surely not. Will I always make it up at the right time? Most definitely not! Will I have a good disposition each time I hear that alarm go off, signaling the beginning of my day? Preposterous! Will it make a difference and get easier the more I do it? I believe so.
I'm going to take it one day at a time and one goal at a time. Right now I want to focus on starting my day with my coffee and Bible reading time. That relaxes me right away and puts my mind in the right place. I'm way behind on my yearly Bible reading plan (I'm going through the New Testament in a year) so I have been reading extra each day to catch up. I'm hoping by the end of this month I'll be completely on track again! (Yes, I'm that far behind!)
So, maybe you can join me on my new quest to become a morning person, or at least live like I'm a morning person. Are you a morning person? Do you have a morning routine? What helped you to get into this habit? What do you still struggle with? Take a minute and share your story with me. I could really use some encouragement and accountability!
5 comments:
You know I was recently where you are with this Steph! I used to hate early mornings too but now it's more of a love/hate thing. :) I love how much more productive I feel when I get up and get things done early in the morning but if I went to bed late the night before it can be torturous to get myself up. It's especially hard if I feel like I HAVE to stay up late for some reason. Paul has been studying for the first section of the CPA exam (which he took yesterday) and staying up pretty late each evening to prepare. I've been staying up till he is ready to go to bed so I can be up for him when he gets done and wants to unwind for a few minutes before going to bed. Staying up so late has made it easy for me to rationalize skipping my workouts in the morning for an extra half hour of sleep. I am still getting up to take my shower and read my Bible but I haven't been doing my full morning routine. And I'm really feeling that now that he is done with the test and is also ready to go to bed at an earlier time. Now I'm going to have to get back in the saddle of those early monings!
Great thought-provoking post! I used to have a great morning routine with the big kids...until Quinn arrived. I'd like to start having breakfast together at the table again (it's normally the easiest meal and everybody likes the food :-) especially now that i can put Q in her high chair and she can eat cereal with us. It's very hard to feel motivated when you're tired but I agree that it's very important to do those things you mentioned.
Especially the husband thing! It's hard to remember little things like that when you have a billion other things on your mind...but I think it means alot to them!
I will consider waking up before my kids... :-) I think it is a small sacrifice for a big pay-off, but it just seems so HARD! haha! I also stay up way too late, so that may be something I will have to cut back on.
Keep these posts coming! I love it!
I used to love my morning routine where I woke up before the kids (usually 6 am) had coffee, read my Bible and blogged. It was so nice and quiet. During the summer I went out on the deck. It was nice! I miss it. I want to work towards that again. I know it's pretty impossible right now since I have a newborn but once she gets on a predictable schedule I should be able to start back up again. You and I just need to go to bed early!! Here I am writing this after 10 pm and I still have dishes to do and a lunch to make! I've heard starting gradually works well with people. Like, getting up 15 minutes earlier at a time for a few days until you're at the time you want to be. It's hard!!
Great post!
Grace, I actually was inspired to write about this after reading your blog post on getting up early to work out! I think it's very sweet that you stay up late for Paul when he's studying. I end up staying up late but not for Waylon! lol I guess I could do that for him and be more supportive but sometimes he's just staying up to watch the Mavs or read about the Mavs or watch sports news. I don't really want to miss out on sleep I need for that! haha
Jackie, I think it's a great thing to try to sit and have a meal together with your kids. Especially while they are young like this. It builds great memories for them and they will grow knowing this is something important to do. And yes, it's very hard to think to do little things for our husbands when we are busy thinking about everything that needs to be done for the kids. But they are small things that I think make a HUGE difference for them. I know Waylon has come to rely on the coffee I make each morning. It's not much, but it helps him get his day off on the right foot.
Mel, I used to be so jealous of your morning routine! I agree that right now, with an infant it's a bit harder until they develop a predictable routine. I'm looking forward to Layla having a predictable eating schedule at night so I can plan my wake up time better. It changes daily right now so it's hard to figure out when to go to bed so that I have the most hours of sleep before her first feeding. Inevitably, I always go to bed when she's going to be waking up for a feeding in less than two hours. That's always the hardest one for me to wake up for! I like your idea of getting up 15 minutes earlier each time to build up to it. I'll have to try that.
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