Morning | Chapter 4, In Love

Wash the dish not because it is dirty nor because you are told to wash it, but because you love the person who will use it next.

This beautiful quote is from Mother Teresa. I've been thinking a lot about the mundane, about the things that grieve and frustrate me in my days.

January’s theme is “Morning.” While our writers write about the many ways to spend the mornings, practical ways to use that sacred space, etc., we’ve been practicing a simple morning routine.

Practice #16 
Make a 1, 2, 3 morning routine. Write down three simple steps to start your morning and do them everyday for the month of January! 

I'm pregnant with our fourth baby and in my third trimester. It's been a fairly easy pregnancy, but there's nothing easy about being pregnant while already caring for other children. It's a miraculous thing (something I still can't wrap my mind around) that takes so much starting an re-starting and trying again that you'd think one would quit. And yet, we don't. Mothers show up, they have to. Day after day, you're squeezed beautifully and painfully by the people you love most to become something better than what you currently are. 

I think our mornings are the same. Unflinching, unfaltering, morning comes again. We might not like who we are, or who we have to do life with. We might loath our circumstances and hide from harsh realities. Morning comes. We chance it and run head first. Sometimes I do this. I busy and create enough activity and work that I don't have to hear my inner dialogue, I don't have to address it. 

Other times I hide. Rolling back and forth, tossing under the inevitable moment that every child will wake up and I have to stumble into the kitchen to make a breakfast that may end up half on the floor around their plates. 

Not every morning is a brisk, solitary walk, a lovely cuddling moment with your babe, a kiss on the cheek from a loved one, or a warm cup of coffee sipped slow and prayed over. 

Some mornings (many mornings) our worst fears wake us up, or they beg for our attention while we try to distract ourselves. 

This makes me think of Mother Teresa. I think about what her life was, what she did, and who she did it for.

I don't always want to face the day. I don't always want to wake up before my kids and make coffee and prep breakfast (but it's better when I do). I love to be alone and process. Now in my life more than ever! But, I embrace the morning, I do the thing, I hold the babies because of love.

So, whether you've been able to embrace the 1, 2, 3 morning routine or not, I pray you embrace the morning for love of the day and the ones in it. It's not always pretty, but it is good. A new day, a fresh page, a gift. 

And if the first few minutes of your fresh page is blotted with angry words, or late appointments, breathe in. 

Breathe out. 

Take the next step into this morning with love, with purpose, with compassion. 

Not for self gain or for a new-er brighter future, but for love. In love and for love, embrace the new day. 

Article by, Emily Dean | Photography by, Hilary Hyland