Thursday Morning

Thursday mornings are hard at my house. On Thursdays my wife leaves for work about the time I wake up so I have to wake, feed, and dress both myself and my daughter for school and work. Then we have to fight 20+ miles of Houston traffic to get to pre-school--which is also in the building where I work--before the 2-year-old teacher looks at me with great disdain for showing up late. Often I find myself dreading Thursday mornings. But this morning, when I got to work I read again a post I placed on this blog in May 2004 and remembered the beauty of being a father.
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Don't you hate mornings? I do! I have never understood those people who jolt out of bed and bound around the house before 6:00 am each morning. Are they crazy? Do they not have good dreams? My wife works with a woman who wakes up every day around 4:00 am. She practices her piano--which I'm sure her husband loves,--eats breakfast, reads the daily paper and gets to the office before 6:00. Why? Surely there must be some mental dysfunction going on there. But, I guess some folks are just morning people.

I am not one of those people! I am a night person. In my view the world is backward. We should sleep in the day and be up at night. I understand why our inner clocks work the way they do, but I'm not a farmer or a rancher. I don't need the daylight to get things done. The earliest anyone needs to get up is 10:00 am. Anything that needs to be done before that can wait. Right?

Well, that's how I used to feel.

Now our daughter, Malia, wakes up every morning between 7:30 and 8:00. From the living room we can hear her begin to stir. Turning, stretching, yawning and sighing are signs that her new day is about to begin. My first instinct is to race in to get her, but to do that would mean missing the magic. When she first stirs, she's not quite fully awake. The patient man is rewarded if he can wait for a few minutes until she is fully awake but she hasn't realized she is alone. If you go in her room then, you will see the glory of the sun in her eyes. Standing there, I watch her roll over when she senses the presence of someone in the room, her eyes blink as she recognizes a familiar and loving face and then a smile only given to angels inches across her face. It is magic!

Right then, a overwhelming feeling of joy and love floods from the heavens into my heart. My only response is to pick her up, kiss her and tell her how much she is loved. It's a feeling so far beyond words, that one feels silly even trying to describe it. No matter how difficult it was to put her to sleep the night before, or how much she fused the previous day, or how many diapers there were to change, the love greatly outweighs the pains (if those things can even be called pains).

There is something mysterious and magical about the morning, something glorious. Each day is a new beginning, a fresh start to revive our lives. Malia has taught me that mornings are God's perfect painting of renewal and blessedness.

Standing over her this morning, these words came to mind:"Because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness." (May 2004)
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Those are beautiful words if I say so myself. Here are some beautiful words Malia shared with me this morning as I went into her room: "Daddy, I'm poopy."

How things change! She is still glorious!