Starting off the Day

This morning as I lay in bed, I could hear my 6-year-old daughter singing quietly to herself in her bed. What a great way to start the day. I much prefer when she wakes up singing then when I have to wake her up, exhausted on a school day, and she's whining and complaining that she's too tired to get up yet... I choose singing over whining any day of the week! (if only it were my choice to make)

I do have other choices to make that affect my mornings though... will I press snooze, which results in a rushed morning to get myself ready and everyone up and going too... will I eat breakfast right away as I feed the girls, or will I get busy with 1001 tasks only to realize that I'm grumpy because I still haven't eaten (I don't function well without breakfast)... and the one which has the greatest impact on my day: will I sit and take a moment to read my Bible as I eat breakfast before I rush off and continue with the rest of my day (before or after the kids have eaten)...

Why is that last one so significant? Because I find that reading my Bible in the morning sets me up for a better day. It gets me refocused, invites God into my day from the start, and leads to a heart of prayer as I sit in the car driving to work, or doing tasks around the house - praying for my husband, my girls, friends, family, etc. In short, it puts life in perspective and reminds me that God is with me through each moment of my day.

I find that I've not been starting off my day right the past while, and I've been feeling it... impatience... rushing from one task to the next feeling like I'm not getting ahead... I have had seasons where I can pour into deeper studies, and others where I can barely get to just read a brief devotional with reflections written by various people based on a short passage. I'm in a busy season, and knowing that I've been missing the mark too often in past months, I'm back to picking up a devotional, though light, it at least is a start to get me focused in the morning and is better then nothing!

So I may not be able to choose if my daughter will wake up singing or cranky, but I can choose to take even just a minute to refocus my day by reaching for God's Word. What a difference it makes to my day!