LeeAnn G Taylor - Embracing the Mosaic Life

Trusting our broken pieces to the Ultimate Artist

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Parenting With Purpose: Day 3 – Maximize Your Mornings

October 3, 2014 By LeeAnn G. Taylor

Yesterday I shared part of my personal story of learning the importance of my role in setting the spiritual atmosphere in the home. If you missed that post or previous ones, you can find all the posts for this series on the Parenting With Purpose Series page.

Today I promised to reveal the resource God led me to as I sought a different way to start my mornings and set the spiritual tempo of my days.

Once I realized that my selfish behavior was dishonoring my husband and leaving me spiritually empty, I knew something had to change!

Searching for An Answer

Not really knowing where to turn, I Googled “intentional mornings” and landed right onto Kat Lee’s site, Inspired to Action.

She had recently released an ebook called Maximize Your Mornings, and I quickly found out it was exactly the direction I needed. Her grace-based, habit-focused, baby-steps approach allowed me to ease into waking up earlier just five minutes at a time without feeling guilty.

Honestly, her approach was refreshing since I’d tried and failed at other online programs designed at improving your life at home. (Someone please tell me I’m not the only one who tried FlyLady’s cleaning routine and failed miserably!)

I needed an approach to mornings that provided concrete “wins”.

I Can’t Do This Alone

While the baby steps approach helped break down the mental block I had constructed for myself surrounding my ability to get up earlier in the mornings, trying to turn this new concept into a lasting habit proved more than I could manage alone.

It turns out, God created people to be in community with one another and I needed just that – accountability to stay the course and a group of people to notice when I didn’t follow through with my commitment.

Success…and Failure

Right around the time I downloaded the Maximize Your Mornings ebook, one of Kat’s blog readers suggested starting a challenge for women on the Maximize Your Mornings journey. They called it “Hello Mornings” and I enthusiastically signed up for an accountability group on Twitter, a new social media platform to me at the time.

Not uncharacteristically, I committed to the first week or so and then promptly dropped off. I’d experienced just a tiny bit of success and then there it was again, failure.

Let’s just say I was glad to remember that God can redeem all of our failures!

Through that experience I realized I was trying to fit my morning time into a list of religious checkboxes. My church upbringing was in a culture that often focused more on rules and religious “to do” lists, leading me to think it was all up to me to be a “successful” Christian woman.

And in this season of my life, I thought “successful” equalled getting up early to do a devotional.

Trying Again – The Hello Mornings Challenge

I was relying solely on myself and found out quickly that it was only in God’s strength that my inner night owl would transform into a willing early bird as I sought a deeper relationship with Him.

And so, I decided to try the Hello Mornings Challenge again.

With a new perspective and focus on God’s strength not mine, I relished my newfound freedom in Christ to pursue relationship, not rules.

This time around in January of 2013 I joined a different Hello Mornings group, one that embraced me and my imperfection while helping me stay accountable to my desire to grow in consistency with my new morning routine.

Almost two years later, four ladies from the original group are still checking in with one another on Twitter in the mornings. We provide encouragement, pray for specific situations in one another’s lives, and share praises from the day to day journey. We certainly don’t do it perfectly, but each of us continues to grow and transform as we seek to reflect Christ in our lives and in our parenting.

Wake Up FOR Your Children, Not TO Your Children

As we continue our exploration into Parenting With Purpose, one key message I want to convey is one that Kat emphasizes when she talks about the Hello Mornings Challenge.

The goal is to wake up FOR your children – to pray for them, to prepare for the day, to center yourself in God’s Word, and to get your body moving instead of groggily rolling out of bed when the littles are pulling your hair, patting your cheeks, and asking for Cheerios and cartoons.

Our purposeful choices in the morning, no matter how small we start, will make a lasting impact on the spiritual environment of our homes and our children will begin to notice the difference!

Setting Yourself Up For Success

As I promised, I’m sharing some key resources to set you up for success in making your mornings a time to set the spiritual atmosphere of your home first thing in the morning.  

It’s my prayer that these will be tools you can use wherever you are in your morning quiet time journey.

Maximize Your Mornings – {ebook} – This free ebook is available on InspiredtoAction.com and walks you through the process of taking your very first steps in a morning routine. You’ll also find a blog series by the same name of this page.

Tips For Getting Up Early – {blog series} – This is where you should start if you’re just looking for some practical tips to help you get up earlier (and to save yourself from your husband dragging you out of bed like my husband did!).

Hello Mornings Challenge – {accountability & relationships} – The challenge is OPEN for the upcoming six week challenge through Sunday, October 5th. If you’re ready to find out more about how the challenge works and how you can get involved in a group, this is where you need to start! Note that everyone who accepts the challenge will get a Bible study guide, a free worship song, and an awesome document you can use to walk you through your morning time if you need a little more structure.

God Day: A Morning Song – {morning inspirational music} – If you’re just starting out on your morning quiet time journey, I encourage you to just get up 5 minutes early and listen to this song. As I understand it, Jen Stanbro wrote this song in the midst of her own Hello Mornings journey. I know it will bless you and encourage & challenge you as it does me in the mornings.

If you’d like to get to know Jen’s story about being a mom who said “yes” to God in spite of uncertainty, check out her interview with Kat on the Inspired to Action Podcast.

31 Days of Waking Up Early – {blog series – real life} – Need some boots-on-the-ground inspiration for waking up early? Jacque at A Joyfully Abundant Life is sharing her real life experience of creating the habit of waking up earlier. Join her during October for more inspiration!

How To Transform Your Mornings – {podcast} –  If you’re a person who likes to listen and learn, then Kat’s latest podcast is for you! She walks you through her morning time journey and explains both her approach and the Hello Mornings Challenge more in detail.

ITA-56-Mornings

Follow Along!

If you’re not already receiving blog posts by email, you can sign up to follow along with the series and have the posts delivered right to your inbox. Or, if you’d prefer, follow along onFacebook,Twitter, Pinterest, or BlogLovin.

For those of you who would like to dive deeper into the topic each day, join the moms gathered in our private Facebook group for this series. I can’t wait to meet you and encourage one another on this parenting journey!

 

Parenting With Purpose Day 3

Parenting With Purpose: Day 2 – Set The Atmosphere First

October 2, 2014 By LeeAnn G. Taylor

It’s Day 2 of the 31 Day Writing Challenge and all through the month of October we’re diving into Parenting on Purpose: Creating a God-Centered Home.

If you missed Day 1, you can read it here. Just scroll down to the bottom of the page for the list of posts in this series.

Parenting With Purpose: Creating a God Centered HomeToday we’re focusing in on a critical aspect of creating a God-centered home.

Before we can create God-centered homes, we must center ourselves in His word first.

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While there is certainly not a formula for how to center yourself in your relationship with God and in His word, the key message is that we make this a priority in our own lives.

We must be filled up with God’s Spirit and have His truths planted firmly in our hearts before we’re able to pour out grace-filled, purposeful parenting that leads our children’s hearts closer to the heart of God. 

gingertea

While my journey toward centering myself in God’s word may look different from yours, today I’m sharing my path with the hope that it will be the catalyst for some of you to at least begin this journey or even take a few steps forward toward preparing your hearts to create a more God-centered home.

My Story: From Night Owl to Early Bird

My husband would be the first to tell you stories from the early days of our marriage when he literally would have to pull me out of bed in the mornings so I wouldn’t be late for work.

No joke.

I was in my 20s and required another adult to intervene just to get me out of bed. Sometimes I wonder how I ever made it to 8am college classes!

Needless to say, this was not a highlight of our marriage every morning and it continued for years. Years, ya’ll!

I’m thinking this is one of those things my mom should have warned my husband about before he married me, seeing as getting out of bed in the mornings has been a challenge for me as long as I can remember.

Time for a Change

While I can’t recall the exact catalyst for my change in this deeply rooted habit of sleeping in, I do remember we’d recently transitioned my daughter into a toddler bed at the time.

For months, I’d wake up to little hands on my face and then she’d crawl into bed for snuggles. I convinced myself that these sweet snuggles were just too precious to squelch, so I continued to sleep (or at least stay in bed) until the absolute last minute.

Usually I stayed in bed later than the last absolute minute.

As you can imagine, my mornings after I finally DID get out of bed were not particularly productive with me rushing around trying to get myself ready and out the door to work on time.

The Turning Point

My husband ended up taking up the slack every morning, getting our daughter ready and making both of us breakfast. He is gracious but after awhile, his constant “LeeAnn. Get. Out. Of. Bed.” reminders each morning {combined with some conviction from the Holy Spirit} helped me realize my choices in the mornings were dishonoring him and starting our days off poorly.

The atmosphere in our home in the mornings was rushed and irritable and it was my fault. 

I definitely was not starting my day off centered in God’s word.

To be honest, I wasn’t setting aside any time for God’s word at this point in my life.

My daughter didn’t sleep through the night consistently until she was 15 months old so I’d been functioning in a state of exhaustion for quite awhile. I used that as an excuse along with some other spiritually challenging situations that should have led me TO God’s word instead of AWAY from it.

As a result, both my relationship with my husband and the atmosphere in my home were suffering. On top of that, I felt completely out of control in many other areas of my life because I was lacking roots in my relationship with God.

 Finding A Key Resource

I am a serious research junkie. My husband tells people I can find anything online that I’m looking for and usually that’s true. It’s not a surprise that “Curiosity” was listed as my top strength in an online character strength test he asked me to take not long ago.

So once I realized that something in my morning routine needed to change, I did what I always do when I don’t know what to do or how to do it – research!

It was by God’s grace that my Google searching landed me directly onto a site with just the resource I needed!

Tomorrow for Day 3 of the Parenting With Purpose series I’ll reveal the resource that changed my mornings and led me down a completely different path. 

I’ll be sharing:

  • The challenge that changed everything about my mornings
  • A free ebook for you to use on your morning journey
  • My favorite song for starting my mornings off God-centered
  • An exciting opportunity for you to begin your God-centered mornings the same way I did!

Don’t Miss Out!

If you’re not already receiving blog posts by email, you can sign up to follow along with the series and have the posts delivered right to your inbox. Or, if you’d prefer, follow along on Facebook,Twitter, Pinterest, or BlogLovin.

For those of you who would like to dive deeper into the topic each day, join the moms gathered in our private Facebook group for this series. I can’t wait to meet you and encourage one another on this parenting journey!

Parenting With Purpose Day 2

When God Wakes You Up: A New Approach to Mornings

July 30, 2014 By LeeAnn G. Taylor

When God Wakes You Up: A New Approach to Mornings

photo credit: demandaj via photopin cc

I’m not a morning person. As a teenager, my mom had a terrible time getting me out of bed. Even after Chuck and I got married, there were times when he literally had to pull me out of bed in the mornings. What can I say? I like my comfy bed!

Even now, my night owl self can stay up until the wee hours of the morning to get things done. 

when God wakes you up

photo credit: Fosforix via photopin cc

There was a point a few years ago though that I realized I was missing out on an opportunity for the most productive time of the day – the morning!

It is no surprise that this realization came right around the time I had settled into a routine with baby #2. Staying up late at night was no longer a viable option when I was getting up multiple times a night to nurse and comfort a hungry baby.

The hour before both kids woke up was often my only distraction-free time during the day.

when God wakes you up

photo credit: Matthieu Luna via photopin cc

At the same time, I realized in order to stay connected to God and continue to build my relationship with Him, I needed focused time in the Word. In my current situation, that was happening sporadically at best.

That’s when I found Hello Mornings. Kat Lee (most wonderful encourager of moms!) from Inspired to Action published a free e-book called Maximize Your Mornings. After a quick download and review of the book, I realized I’d found something that might work for me.

coffee in the morning

photo credit: marfis75 via photopin cc

Sometimes we want something to change in our lives but we don’t take the needed steps to make the change happen.

After years of telling myself I just wasn’t a morning person, I changed my approach and started praying for God to wake me up in the mornings. I joined an accountability group through Hello Mornings, set out my Bible and journal each night, and set my alarm.

You know what happened? God woke me up!

When I purposed in my heart to draw closer to Him, He was faithful and woke me up.

When we purpose in your hearts to draw closer to God, He will wake us up!

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His word is true:

Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. James 4:8a

Today, I challenge you to start drawing near to God and make a decision about the time you intentionally set aside for growing your relationship with Him.  

If you need a new approach to your mornings, try these steps:

1. Download the FREE Maximize Your Mornings ebook. Kat walks you through the steps of a morning routine in a grace-filled way that will set you up on a path to success.

2. Pray for God to wake you up! See Matthew 7:7.

3. Join a Hello Mornings accountability group. Registration for the next 6-week session starts August 4th and the official start of the session is August 11. Groups check in with each other in a variety of ways – Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. There’s a community for everyone!

If you have questions about my morning routine or Hello Mornings, feel free to email me at contact (at) leeanngtaylor (dot) com. 

And for today’s Worship Wednesday, I’ll leave you with the song that God woke me up with THIS morning! And a fun fact…in college, I was in a multi-cultural (but traditionally black-gospel style) gospel choir called Voices of Praise. This was one of the songs we sang on tour.

Today, I pray that God wakes you up! Remember His love never changes and He never fails!

If you’re reading in an email or blog feed reader, click here to see the video.

Hezekiah Walker – Wonderful is Your Name


All of my life I’ve never known You to fail
You remain the same and wonderful is Your name 

You woke me up this morning 
And You started me on my way
You put food on my table
You brought joy to my day

I’m glad Your love has never changed
And wonderful
And wonderful
And wonderful, wonderful is Your name.

Sharing today with Meredith at Woman 2 Woman, Saturday Linky Love, and Faith Along the Way.

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