On Thursday, the big boys packed up their stuff and headed off to Hume Lake with their dad for Father-Son camp, leaving me at home alone with the three youngest. While I've come a long way since last years trip, and even farther from my husband's first business trip when I had to have my sister and her daughter stay with me and the kids, the first night was still a tough one. I was too wired to fall asleep. I tried everything, finally turning on the radio to Air1--in hindsight maybe a more mellow station would have helped?--and leaving the light on on my clock radio. Once I finally got to sleep it wasn't long until I was joined by a child who woke me up to get into bed. An hour another came along, with the need to wake me first.
Needless to say, when the alarm went off at 5am on Friday morning I wasn't happy to respond. I had put it across the room from me earlier in the week so I had to get out of bed to get to it. You know, the snooze button still works that way? ;) After two snoozes I crawled out of bed figuring I'd be completely exhausted, surprisingly I wasn't. I made it through the whole day intact. We did our normal stuff...mommy & me class, art class, even visited with some friends before going to CFA (where else?) for dinner. We came home and watched Facing the Giants (it was a Sherwood Pictures weekend) got ready for bed and, after reading and some singing of praise songs with the kids to help them calm down, I went to bed....and promptly fell asleep. The same went for the next day. In fact I popped out of bed right at 5.
This week, we radically changed our lives by sending our three middle boys to school for the first time. It's been too much for me to homeschool them and try to help my two with LDs. This, of course, means a completely different morning schedule. The boys have to be at school by 8, to do this they have to get up 30 minutes earlier than they did for homeschool, and they have to eat breakfast (can't wait until after Bible now) and get ready to leave the house by 7:30. A year ago this would have completely freaked me out. There is no way I could have accomplished it. But since I've already spent most of the year working on getting up at 5 and having a morning routine, the transition is going more smoothly. There will be kinks to work out, I'm sure, but they won't seem insurmountable coz I've already been doing a "light" version.
Looking back it seems obvious that I didn't find the Hello Mornings Challenge by accident. The Lord knew what I would need. He knew what would help me. He knew how to motivate me to do it. He cares for our smallest need, even our need to get up earlier so our day can go more smoothly. When you think about how great God is, how He holds everything in place, yet cares for each of us so deeply, it's pretty humbling.
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