How do you start your day?

Journal, bible, notebook...dried fern frond glued onto the page of my bible.

It's a question...not a condemnation. It's a challenge...not a judgment.

How DO you start your day?

I do my best to begin every day with God. I wake early, grab my coffee and sit in the quiet with my bible and my prayer journal and God. I pray and read and write...documenting what I believe God is trying to communicate to me. I scrawl my prayers...my concerns...my frustrations..my requests to God on the pages of my journal in hopes that He will give me some answers....some guidance. And I have to admit...sometimes it's really hard to stay focused...to not allow my mind to wander off to the grocery list or the laundry pile or what so-and-so said to me that hurt my feelings. If this happens...I try to remember to present these thoughts to God. Is it Him trying to get my attention about the groceries? Or is it a distraction trying to take my focus off of my quiet time with God? I take ALL of these things before Him...He answers.

Don't get me wrong. There are days when I over sleep...when I get up with everyone else and the day begins whether I'm ready or not. These days just don't go quite as smoothly, lemme tell ya'. Not even close. So I try to get "up while it is still dark" (Prov.31) and fill myself with Truth and Grace...so that I can extend it to others. I can't give what I don't have...and on my own, I have nothing.

I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. Galatians 2:20