Another successful non-snoozer morning!
It was more difficult to get up today. I was late getting to bed last night, as p.j. and I had classes in town until late. I tried a few visualizations of the morning get up routine, but it was so hard to stay focused! This morning, rather than jumping out of bed, I flailed in bed until I could get upright on the floor. Then I went to the bathroom and turned on the light before turning off the alarm. I did this because I was struggling my way out of sleep and wanted to be sure to have the light on before turning the alarm off. That's great and all, but it proves that I am still functioning by reason of my conscious (please use the term "reason" loosely here), rather than following conditioning of my subconscience. That means my sleepy consciousness could turn and betray me in a moment, though so far it hasn't. I think I need to amp up the visualizations to get the routine pounded into my subconscience, where it's supposed to be.
I ran into another related problem. I am not conditioned to jump, unquestioningly, into my running clothes. I looked at the clothes, and although it was decided I should stay up, I was not convinced I should get into my running clothes. I looked at the clothes some more; I didn't see clothes, I saw cold morning air and effort. So I didn't; I made some tea, grabbed my Bible and notebook, and spent time with my Savior. I prayed, read from My Utmost For His Highest (amazing devotional), and read from Acts chapter 3 and studied verse by verse. Acts is so appropriate for my life right now (well, when would it not be? but I mean particularly so right now), as I am stepping out in ministry. It was awesome time.
This brings me back to my original trouble with scheduling running as a priority over scheduling time with God, but hopefully poses a solution as well. I want to put nothing over God in my life. As I have practiced intentional living (as evidenced in this blog) and tried to be sensitive to God's direction, I have come to a point where running seems to be established in my life (to an extent) and there is a good space to use for exclusive devotion to God; this devotion has always been immediately essential, but has also been all but impossible to live out. I plan to use my morning time every other day for devotions and the other days for running. It isn't perfect, but it's a start. I hope it keeps me fresh and willing regarding both. As time goes by and I season in my devotions, I will likely look to increase my time to daily, but right now going from zero to every other day looks like a great improvement.
Tomorrow I have an early morning run, then a morning of yard sale-ing, craft shop & antique store browsing before lunch, all with the gals. All these things have been fully against my grain, and admittedly antiquing still sound awful, but I'm actually looking forward to seeing the pros in action at the yard sales. I'm curious. I have things I want to see at the craft stores - uck, yeah I said it - and I need yarn for my second knitting project. Or I'll stop knitting and do something else. These gals have a way of sucking a person in and turning them to the dark side (of crafting). It's simply because they are wonderful friends, and any activity involving them is good.
p.j. bought a Cannondale MTB, so I now have my Cannondale MTB back. I am excited to do a little cross training. I hope it doesn't kill me.
