The alarm sounded and I realized it wasn't my alarm but Rob's, in my overly tired delirous state last night I forget to set mine. I had lost an hour of precious time I needed for our morning to run smoothly and to stick with a goal I had made at Time Out for Women to bring more holiness into our morning routine.
Rewind to Saturday and me sitting in the Time Out for Women audience listening to Emily Freeman give a fantastic presentation on writing Christ's name on our hearts. She talked about being "Almost" versus "All Together Committed". Instead of thinking I almost read my scriptures, said my prayers, etc. today, we need to be all together committed to doing these things each day.
When I thought about how to apply this concept to my goal of building a better relationship with my sidekicks I thought about being all together committed to making our mornings more Holy. I figured to be all together committed I would have to be perfect about waking up on time, and accomplishing a long list of tasks I had for the morning.
I crawled out of bed knowing this morning was bound to go one of two ways: I could either completely stress out about everything needing to be done, most likely end up frustrated and yelling at my kids until most if not all of us were in tears, or I could say my prayers and ask for help to accomplish everything that needed to be done and also for some help to make it out the door on time.
I decided to go with plan B, I said my prayers and then climbed in the shower. It was then I started to beat myself up over not being all together committed this morning, instead I was being almost and as a result ruining my goal to bring more holiness into our mornings.
It was then the thought came that being all together commited didn't mean I had to be perfect, because lets face it being perfect is impossible (which is something my perfectionist/all or nothing self has a very hard time understanding) Instead being fully committed is an attitude and a desire to do our best, to try everyday to live as our Savior did, but also to know we won't be perfect. This is why we have the Atonement, to make up for everything we lack.
There are going to be mornings when my alarm is not set, nights when my daughter wakes me up at 3am for no reason, and dogs who bark for a good 20 minutes keeping me awake after I have my daughter settled back in bed. Through all this I can remain fully committed by striving to have an attitude of paitence and love and not one of screaming and yelling because I over slept and we might be late.
This morning Rob read scriptures while I listened and put my makeup on (we were even reading about taking the name of Christ upon us), the kids had cold cereal instead of oatmeal, the dishes where not done when we left the house, and Samantha was 5 minutes late for choir practice. But I did notice the spirit was present all morning. There were not any tears shed and no frustrated mom making her appearance.
It wasn't a perfect morning, but I was able to remain all together committed to making sure there was more holiness and lots of love this morning as we rushed out the door.
