Making the Most of Mornings – For the Non-Morning Person

While sitting with my toddler, trying to think of a way to continue wonderful slow vacation mornings once we return to the rush of American life, read this:

In the morning, Lord, you hear my voice; in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait expectantly. Psalms 5:3

Maybe it isn’t about waking up with plenty of time, savoring coffee, or a healthy breakfast. Maybe it isn’t even about no screen distractions, a clean house, or excellent views.

Those things would make a temporary small difference, but learning to begin my day laying my requests before God and waiting expectantly will make an eternal life changing difference.

The first would all be good, but meaningless without the other.

I need to make time to prioritize my time not only to make requests but to wait expectantly. I tend to make requests and then completely forget.

We are waking up early on this vacation even though jet lag should be causing us to sleep on super late. I have never been a morning person, but in the last years I’ve discovered I love the quiet light of morning. Our days are packed and busy. Mornings can be a quiet rested time, while nights are a quiet exhausted time.

Mornings feel like a newly discovered treasure, that I only started to discover when I married slow moving Persian, who required slow breakfasts before anything.

When my husband died my therapist suggested I make a list of things I wanted to preserve from our life together. The purpose of the list was so I could quit striving during the most jarring days of grief and restart things on the list as I healed. Breakfast together was one of the top things on that list that is still safe in the back of my first year of grief journal.

I want to continue our early morning slowness when we return home, but I don’t want it just to be about slow time. I want it to be about meaningful time with God.

Top three reasons mornings are working for us here?

1. We play so hard all day, mostly outdoors, so we absolutely collapse in bed early at night. Both of us.
2. We eat at the same TABLE and not on the couch in front of the TV.
3. Whole wheat bread, no sugar breakfasts. Minor variation in topping, but little thought. You know how, um, constipation is normally a travel woe? Well, it’s not if you eat like a Dutchman.

So, I’m going to try to incorporate these three practical things back home. But even if I succeed, it will only be a small win if I don’t first and foremost start my days lifting my voice to God and entering my day with expectant anticipation.