hello mornings

For the past two weeks, I've been working on being intentional. Not just saying that I want to be intentional. Not just repeating the word over + over to myself, writing it down, or mentally preparing myself to be intentional. Actually bringing intention to my life, every morning.

I've been fairly quiet about it, even in my own house among my husband and best friend, in fear that life with a newborn would get the best of me, I would quit six days in + have to explain myself. Now that I've got two weeks under my belt + am a bit less afraid of the groove ending, I'm beginning to realize that I need to stop fearing my impending failures [otherwise they're more likely to happen!] and live my life with not only intention, but open intention.

The first week of Hello Mornings, following along with the Kept Study, was an introduction to Peter, beginning in Matthew as Peter denied Jesus, and moving into Acts + 2 Corinthians. This past week had us reading through the five chapters in the book of 1 Peter for a quick overview before beginning to dig into the content next week.

In the wee hours of the morning, usually around four o'clock when Rowan wakes for her night time feeding, I've been reading about Peter. I use the YouVersion app to read while she eats, and then I try to get a few extra hours of sleep when she goes back down [Mama needs her rest!]. Once we're all up for the day, I keep coming back to the day's reading, going over it multiple times and underlining an embarrassingly large percentage of the chapter.

What began as a challenge to get myself out of bed in the morning has quickly evolved into motivation to not only start my day off in the Word, but also to stay in those pages throughout my day. I know this is mostly because of the fact that it takes all day to really underline my way through a chapter, but hey, whatever works.

I've remained accountable not only to myself, but also to a group of ladies on twitter, [although I'm not great at checking in, since I'm normally doing the reading for the first time in the middle of the night!]. Apart from mere accountability, these ladies are all over praying for each other, and it's really neat + encouraging to know that a group of women in the Pacific Time Zone are praying for me most days, as I pray for them.

I've often struggled with leaving my quiet time to the late evening, and then never actually getting any quality time in because of busy days, too many things going on, or just plain exhaustion, especially the past seven weeks of having a newborn to care for around the clock. Following a devotional plan along with thousands of other women and being encouraged via twitter every day has made it difficult not to stay on track! I find myself wanting to keep up with the group, to be able to interact with others doing the Kept Study, and even just to know what they're talking about when I read their tweets. Getting up with intention every morning is an easy way to get quiet time in by myself [which I definitely need!] while still keeping me accountable to others doing the same study at the same pace, checking in and sharing what I've been learning as I go.

There are eleven weeks left of the Fall Hello Mornings Challenge, and waking up for my daughter instead of to her cry is the perfect reason to stick with it.