This Mama Needs Grace

I wake up around 5 am every day during the week. You might be wondering: why? It is not like I have to get ready and commute to work. My job is right in this home, being mom to sweet Hudson. There is no commute. No need to get dressed. No need to do my hair. Why would I wake up nearly 2 hours before my baby? The short answer: because I have tried sleeping in and waking up when he does and I hate it. I start my day with the sound of crying and serving. Crying and serving is just part of my job description but in order to best handle the crying and to be able to serve and love Hudson the best I can, I need time before he wakes up. Most people would not think twice about the need to be awake at least an hour before starting their job. You can’t roll out of bed and start working and expect to do a quality job. It is easy to apply this to jobs that require you to go into an office or be dressed professionally or in some type of uniform, but for some reason this logic seems to not always be applied to being a SAHM (stay-at-home mom). This mom thing, is the very best job of my life, but it is even more challenging than getting a room full of 14-year olds excited about semi-colons. Just like I needed that hour drive to work to sip coffee, pray for my students, and listen to The Daily podcast; I need that same hour to sip coffee, read my Bible, write down memorable experiences with Hudson from the previous day, and pray. I am not able to do my best job as mom and wife, if I don’t allow myself this time before the sun rises to process, pray, and prepare.

Some of you reading this, may be thinking there is no way I would wake up at 5 am, if I still have sleeping kids and a quiet house. I get it! I never truly want to get out of bed at 5 am either. My brain immediately starts flooding with excuses. You’re tired, sleep a little more, you deserve it, you don’t technically need to wake up right now. Those are usually the first words I hear. And if I’m honest, lots of mornings I listen to that voice. However, the mornings that I choose to ignore those lingering excuses, and actually fully be out of bed right around 5, are so much more balanced and productive. I get nearly a two-hour block of time for myself. Of course this varies, depending on when Hudson wakes up, but if I’m up at least by 5:15, I know I’ll have a solid hour, usually more. This time allows for me to wake up to the day through writing, praying, and planning ahead. I am allowing myself to wake up to my day, rather than it waking me up. I am intentionally saying my job as mom is so important that I need to prep for it just like any other business executive would prep for their all-important job. So here is the thing, we might not need to wake up at 5 am, but if so many successful career people do it, why shouldn’t we moms? They might be getting up at 5 am or earlier to run businesses, countries, worlds, but isn’t raising future generations just as important? I get it, making snacks, park play dates, and library story time does not seem to fully stack up to board meetings, conferences, and emailing important people. But here’s the thing, it might not feel as noteworthy in the present time, but it is. We are raising the future. This is everything. We are changing lives. We are giving them memories and experiences that hopefully one day they will tell their kids’ kids’ about. These are the types of things I think about to motivate me on those hard days where it feels like all I do is change diapers and fold laundry. As a Christian, I view my responsibility as a parent to not only raise my kids well with good heads on their shoulders and kind hearts, but to help point them to the cross and to develop their own personal relationship with God. And from this perspective, our jobs as parents suddenly has eternal implications. We are talking about souls here. I don’t care how successful an empire or brand you build here on earth, what is going to be left afterwards? All this to say, it is easy to get stuck in that earthly perspective, but if we are able to take a heavenly approach to our days and see the snacks, the park, and the library as sanctuaries to build up our children’s characters to one day hopefully choose to follow Christ, well then I think I can get up a bit earlier to prepare for that. Don’t lose sight of your job as a parent. Regardless of what you believe, parenting is such an important job. It should be handled with just as much care as CEOs and presidents. So if they get up at 5 am, maybe we should too.