Morning Chaos

I am not a morning person. It takes everything I can muster to crawl out of our warm duvet on cold mornings and act more joyful than I really am. I have tried putting on cheerful music in the morning to help jolt me out of my fog, but my boy sighs, puts his headphones on and cranks up his own music to drown out mine. My mood worsens with each minute and begins to pollute the morning. I start slamming things around, wondering why in the world I even got out of bed in the first place. I even feel mildly perturbed at my dog because she has the luxury of being oblivious to the morning chaos as she sleeps in the spot where I was only a few minutes ago. I storm into the room and say under my breath, "It must be nice to be you Lucky." She makes a soft sigh and settles back into sleep.

I sigh in a dramatic kind of way, not the normal type of sighing. It feels like more of a release when I sigh loudly. So, I go about my business sighing. I feel tired and clueless. I fumble around, trying to open a can of chicken soup (I love chicken soup in the morning) without my contacts and by the time I finally dump the can into the pot, Doug has already made Carter's lunch, his morning smoothie and has a pot-roast searing in the pan for dinner and I feel like a walking nightmare.

Finally, after the morning dust settles, I look forward to walking my dog in Peterson Creek and letting the quiet solitude heal the effects of the morning. Breathing in the cold morning air and listening to worship music I feel like I am recalibrating my day and God is giving me a do-over. And then, much to my dismay and frustration, Lucky ruins my moment of holiness by rolling in something so nasty that I can't even begin to wrap my head around it. My hope of salvaging the day comes screeching to a stop and all I can think about is having to go home and shampoo her. The waves just keep coming in pulverizing me to smithereens and I look to heaven and ask God if it's too much to ask for a bit of peace?

Storming back home, I realize that children don't filter life the way I am. They don't grumble and complain about the mishaps. They live in the moment. They wake up naturally excited about a new day. In fact they cannot wait for the day to get started because they know it holds many adventures. They don't get caught up in the past or the future. They are in the here and now. I remember when my boys were little I would massage them and was aware that there was no tension in their muscles and I wondered why. It is because they naturally live in peace (as long as they are raised in healthy homes). Jesus says in Matthew 19:14 "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Children have such beautiful wonder about life. They see the moment as sacred. They stop to explore, enjoy, taste, feel and see. They are not hindered by tasks or materialism. They are not thinking about the past or the future. Little children are not compulsively wondering what others think of them. They naturally dance and sing whenever they feel like it. They peel off their clothes and jump through mud puddles with only their gumboots on. They are free to live spontaneously.

I want to be childlike. I want to wake up in the morning fired up for the day. I want to live with the eyes of a child.