O'Dark Hour

It's 4:45am and my alarm is going off. I have three choices: I can hit snooze and fall back to sleep for a little while, I can completely turn it off and sleep in or I can bite the bullet and actually get out of bed. It's what my mom lovingly describes to as O'Dark Hour

Why am I faced with this dilemma? Because I have accepted the challenge to start my day by getting up and spending time in the Word and praying for my day and for my family.

I am a planner, and I need somewhat of a set schedule or routine. With a new baby having any sort of routine or schedule can be rather difficult. To be perfectly honest, most days I am lucky if I get half of the things done on my to do list. I realized how lacking my devotional life had become in the past year. I was rarely in the Word, except for Church and for mine and my husband's evening Bible reading and prayer before bed. I was desperate for a change, then I found the Maximize Your Morning Challenge at the Inspired to Action blog. I signed up, was assigned a Face book accountability group and every few days I check in with those ladies.

It has made a huge difference in my life over the past few weeks. Instead of waking up TO Silas, I know wake up FOR Silas. I am able to wake up and have my devotional time before Silas wakes up. I am also able to work out and even some mornings, get a shower in before he wakes up! So in order to do all that before Silas wakes, I chose to get up at 4:45am every morning.

To be able to wake that early, I make it a priority to go to bed at a reasonable time, usually I am in bed reading before 9:30pm. I also lay out my work out clothes before bed, and make sure my Bible and journal are ready to go in the living room. In essence, I Maximize My Evening in order to be able to Maximize My Morning.

Now I know that I am pretty lucky because I have a four and a half month old who goes to sleep around 9:00pm and sleeps until 6:30am, most mornings. With that being said, I can very vividly remember the first three months where Silas was only sleeping in three hour stretches and I was exhausted. That is when I was in the phase of waking up TO Silas as he was crying and hungry for his next meal. I thought that phase would never end! But, at last, it did and now I can joyfully greet him in the morning when he wakes with his hymn that I sing over him every morning.

I really try to get up early, the same time every morning. Sometimes that doesn't always happen, but I try. I find that the days that I get up early, spend time in communion with God and work out, I am able to be much more productive during the day. I am taking care of my needs so that I can better serve my family.

"Entering the day without a serious meeting with God, over His Word and in prayer, is like entering the battle without tending to your weapons. The human heart does not replenish itself with sleep. The body does, but not the heart. We replenish our hearts not with sleep, but with the Word of God and prayer." John Piper

So every night I set my alarm clock and pray that the Lord would help me to rise early and meet with him before I start my day.