Good morning ladies! It's such a beautiful day out my way, the sun is out and the skies are clear. Weather like this has been rare, so I'm going to enjoy it today!
I got up at my regular early time this morning, 5:00am- ugh! I get up at that time to exercise, and when I'm done I always feel so much better! Then I got myself ready, got dressed, hair and makeup, etc. I sat down at my kitchen table and had my quiet time, praying and reading my Bible.
I love how the Lord can fill a person with JOY, even if they don't wake up in the most joyful of moods. I feel joyful and I'm determined to have a joyful day. I'm going to get up and put on one of my pretty aprons, I'll wake up the kids with a little song and hugs & kisses, then I'll make them some nice hot oatmeal with brown sugar and maple syrup- it's one of their favorites! I'll smile at my husband when he gets up (it's his day off today), and be a lovely and joyful housewife today. This is what the Lord intends of me, and I'm happy to do it!
I hope you all have a joyful day as well!
good for you! :) wow. 5 a.m. and four children? How old are they? I have three children 8 months, almost 3 and 4 1/2. I have all I can do to drag myself out of bed in the morning! How do you motivate yourself to get up so early?!! Please share! I want to get up earlier so bad! But it's so hard! AND- how do you keep from waking up the kids when you are up?? We're all on one level and it seems hard to do anything without waking them up!
ReplyDeleteWell it didn't happen overnight, that's for sure. I'm a night-owl by nature, after the kiddos are in bed I tend to stay up too late. But overtime my quiet time with the Lord suffered because of this, and at times was non-existant. I had to make a decision to either put the Lord first by going to bed at a decent time (sometimes by 9:00 pm) or put myself first and continue staying up late which led to getting up too late in the morning to have a quiet time. I felt like my family was suffering because of my poor choice to stay up late. I really, truly wanted to get up earlier to have a meaningful quiet time and the Lord answered my prayer. The exercise show that I did had always been on at 1:30 in the afternoon, perfect because that was nap time. But now it was changed to 5:00am, oh the early time was horrible, but I knew this was the change I needed. So now I make sure I get up to exercise and I have a good hour of quiet time in the morning before the kids get up.
ReplyDeleteMy motivation is the difference I've seen in my husband and kids when I do it, as opposed to when I don't do it. I'm a better wife, mom, and Christian when I choose to get up early. And I'm truly more joyful!
We're also in a small (1200 sq foot) house, all on one level, so when I get up in the morning I go in and quietly shut the kids' doors and I don't really turn on the volume of the TV very loud, actually I can hardly hear it, just enough. My son (5) usually is the first one up, but he's so used to seeing me up at the table having my quiet time that he knows to be quiet. I'll usually give him a small bowl of cereal to snack on and turn on a cartoon quietly and that way I can finish up. But I do remember so many mornings that I would try everything and the kids would still wake up earlier than normal. I would try to read even one verse and whisper a prayer to the Lord for strength on those mornings. And I taught them how important it was that "when Mommy is reading her Bible you need to be quiet". It took a little while, but now they know, I was just vigilant in teaching them how important that was.
Thanks for commenting, I hope what I mentioned will help. :)