Early

Early morning light.

I would not call myself a "morning person".  I loathe the sound of an alarm, and since sleep is sometimes hard to come by around here, I genuinely cherish it when I get to partake.

However, nearly equal to my need for sleep, is my need for quiet time.  

As my girls grow and get louder and louder (seriously, I think their volume increases daily) I find myself praying for peace and quiet (and patience!) on a regular basis.  In the midst of homework and housework, it doesn't seem like too much to ask for a gal to get some silence once and a while.  Right?

Time management hasn't always been a strong suit of mine, but necessity has lent me whole new abilities I didn't even know I had the capacity for.  While my prayers for God to suddenly create the 30-hour-day go unanswered (well, unanswered with a 'yes', anyway) my prayers for "finding time" have not.

It was 3:58 in the morning when I woke up today.  This isn't just early, this is ungodly in my book.  The wee hour of the day when it is not-yet-morning and too-late-to-be-nighttime.  And, it seemed so entirely unreasonable to get up and out of bed by choice.

This has been happening to me about once a week lately.  And, to my surprise, I don't entirely hate it.  Mind you, the first several minutes when I wake I'm questioning my sanity and trying to justify a million reasons why I should ignore this prompting to get up and utilize the "free time".  I let the wheels in my head turn for a while before I'm entirely convinced it is worth any while at all.

Then, I got up.  I came downstairs.  I made coffee, and here I am, sitting in the wonderful QUIET chatting with all of you in the only moment this day might give me where my focus can be held for more than a minute's time.  And I'm loving it.

I used to hear about people getting up before the sun and thought they had lost their minds.  I thought we should banish them to some island far away from normal stay-up-late-and-drink-coffee-until-noon people like myself.  I still prefer to reside in the comfortable category of those who would rather sleep in.  I don't think I'm ready to call myself a morning person yet by any means (zombie, maybe, but not morning person).

But, I'm reminded as I take advantage of sweet, calm moments like this that God is providing ALL I need...even peace and quiet within a week filled with deadlines and screaming children and too-high-of-expectations on myself (yeah, we're going to have to eat frozen pizza one more time this week).

Maybe you are struggling to fit something into your own schedule?  Time with your kids, time with God, time for friends, time to rest.  If there's one thing we all have in common, it seems to be that there's just never enough time for any of us, right?

But, even at this ungodly hour, I'm feeling blessed to know that God already has provided all the time I need.  I'm still working out the kinks (and will continue to do so my whole life) on how exactly I prioritize and use that time wisely...but, He has made no mistake on limiting the structure of our days.

Twenty-four hours is all we've got before the next day arrives.  And today, God provided that 4am wake up call right when I needed it most.  [Take a deep breath with me here.]  Peace.  Quiet.  And a moment out of the normal routine to stop and recognize His provision.

Thank you, Lord.  (And thanks for coffee, too!)