5:40am saves the day...

This is precisely the time my eyes opened this morning...

NOT because I planned it that way OR wanted to be awake.  Certainly not because I had gone to bed early and had had enough sleep.  Nevertheless, hard as I tried to ignore the fact that I was awake, I lay there thinking through all the things of this day that need my attention...starting w/the fact that I had forgotten to get the coffee machine ready for Alex who would be waking in twenty minutes counting on the caffeine to get him to work awake.  I made a new decision this morning.  It was to get up and stay up...novel idea, I know.  I've struggled with my early mornings ever since coming back from Kentucky last week -as if it's taken me a week to make up for a week's lost sleep.  My choice to go back to bed after Alex leaves at 6:15 each morning has felt pretty good to my body, but my spirit has been lacking a good filling up.

So...after making a second pot of caffeine just for me, and even though THIS

and THIS

was all I could see around me {and was tempting me in order to distract me}...for the first time in about a week, I enjoyed some alone time reading, praying and starting my day out right.  And, like other times in my life when I've let sleep or let busyness interfere with silence, I wonder why I ever let it go on for so long.  I don't just want silence...I CRAVE it.  But I never realize it so much but when I go without it for a few days...and then I want it all the more.

This day overwhelms me.  I want it to go away and never come back.  I don't want to pack ONE MORE BOX...I don't want to load ONE MORE LOAD OF BOXES IN MY CAR...I don't want to clean ONE MORE INCH...I want to run away from it all.  Far, far away...and I don't want to come back until it's all finished.  {I know, I know...not very logical}  I hate this day...or at least I want to.  And, I'm pretty sure that this is the way I would have felt ALL DAY LONG had I gone back to bed this morning instead of soaking in the silence. 

The silence changed my attitude.  I STILL hate the things I have to do today...I still wish I did not have to face them...but I'm doing them anyway, and so I will choose to do them with joy. I'm making the plan now-at 7:51am, because I'm pretty sure that in about an hour-or less -from nowI will want to choose something different.  

While I wait on an electrician to hang ceiling fans, while I direct the kids in their packing, while I let my mom direct me in my packing {ha!  Seriously, I need my mommy! She keeps me in line and helps me think when I have no thoughts whatsoever!}, and while I go about all of the mundane and dreadful tasks that are ahead of me today, 

this is what I'll be thinking...

"Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on me..."

Isaiah 30:15

 And, even though I'm pretty sure there will be plenty of times I forget this throughout the day and will be tempted to complain and hate the process....I'm counting on the LORD to remind me that my children are watching my attitude..my actions..and my hands.  That should be enough to sweep my bad attitude up in a Gladlock and remember I choose joy for this day.

"Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on me..."

"Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on me..."

"Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on me..."

"Your strength will come from settling down in complete dependence on me..."