How You Wake Up Matters

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you wake up?

For many of us as mothers, our thoughts immediately run to the checklists. Before our feet even touch the floor, our minds are already racing.

Laundry.
Dinner.
Bathrooms.
That sewing project.
Don’t forget to lay out the meat (a mistake I’ve made more than once).

It doesn’t matter whether you’re an early bird or not, the race begins automatically.

I speak from experience. I was guilty of this for years.

I would stumble into the bathroom already rehearsing everything that had to be done. The day hadn’t even started, yet I felt behind.

That was until about five years ago.

Yes, it took me nearly 45 years to learn this lesson.

You see, my mother has always been an early riser. Calm. Steady. Peaceful in the mornings. I assumed it was the coffee… or the fact that she woke up two hours before the rest of the house.

But that wasn’t it.

Every morning at 5:00 a.m., I would call her and unload my list for the day. One morning she gently interrupted me and asked,

“How do you start your day?”

I laughed. “Start my day? In chaos!”

Her response changed me.

“Start your day singing praises.”

She went on to explain that every morning when she wakes up, she begins singing a worship song, sometimes quietly in bed, sometimes as she moves about. She keeps one song in her heart until another one replaces it. Sometimes it’s the same song for months.

She reminded me of the Scripture:

“The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing.”
Isaiah 14:7 (ASV)

Then she said something that shifted everything:

“After you sing, thank God for everything you get to do that day.”

We get to clean the house.
We get to cook for our families.
We get to play with our children.
We get to serve.

If I’m honest, at first I thought she was a little crazy.

I don’t have time for that.

But she challenged me to try it for one week. She said she would check back in.

So I did.

There I was at 3:30 in the morning, lying in bed whisper-singing Amazing Grace. That was the song that kept rising in my heart. Throughout the day, whenever I felt overwhelmed or irritated, I would start singing it again quietly in my mind.

Doing dishes? Singing.
Making dinner? Singing.
Laundry? Singing.
Making coffee? Singing.

Within one week, something in me shifted.

My heart softened.
My pace slowed.
My spirit calmed.

God met me there, not in productivity, but in praise.

Now my newest verse on repeat is:

“This is the day that the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24, ASV)

So I share this as a fellow wife and mother who once woke up in chaos.

Change the way you wake up.

Start with praise.

Shift from “have to” to “get to.”

And let the Lord set the tone before the world does.

May this encourage you today.