The duties and cares of the day crowd about us when we awake each day
– if they have not already dispelled our night’s rest.

How can everything be accommodated in one day?
When will I do this, when that?
How will it all be accomplished?

Thus agitated, we are tempted to run and rush.
And so we must take the reins in hand and remind ourselves,

“Let go of your plans. The first hour of your morning belongs to God.
Tackle the day’s work that he charges you with,
and he will give you the power to accomplish it.”
~Edith Stein from Essays on Woman

 

 

 

Rushing headlong pell-mell tumble-bumble into the day is a specialty of mine.  Once I step out the door there isn’t a single moment of quiet breathing space until I step back in the door 12 hours later.  I realize this is a daily choice I make to live this way: no one forces me to see just one more patient (or four) or complete each chart before I leave or make sure I have responded to a hundred messages.

I would not rest well until the work is finished.

Therefore my hour of quiet starts very early in the day, usually before the sun rises or the birds start to twitter, when there is no every-fifteen-minute appointment schedule and the phone remains silent.

However the rising morning does not belong to me: God knows what I’ll need to get through the day.  He reminds me to breathe deeply, find time to smell the tulips, and take a walk with a buddy,  always remembering I’m not alone.