Before the house wakes I gingerly shimmy out of bed, tip-toe into the kitchen, trying to step around the creaks and toy cars, to make my cup of decaf. I sigh, every single day, in remembrance of caffeine and it’s magical ability to take the edge off of morning and myself. I let nostalgia pass as I pour my hazelnut coconut milk creamer and give thanks that the aroma is the same and that I have warm drink to nurse on the balmy back patio. I take a book, a Bible, a journal and a pen. I take my tired self and sit and wake and wait on the day. I take my cares and concerns and put them on paper and send them off in prayer. On the back patio with my decaf, I let things come and I let things go.

Just as I make the same coffee every morning, I find that . . .

Before the house wakes I gingerly shimmy out of bed, tip-toe into the kitchen, trying to step around the creaks and toy cars, to make my cup of decaf. I sigh, every single day, in remembrance of caffeine and it’s magical ability to take the edge off of morning and myself. I let nostalgia pass as I pour my hazelnut coconut milk creamer and give thanks that the aroma is the same and that I have warm drink to nurse on the balmy back patio. I take a book, a Bible, a journal and a pen. I take my tired self and sit and wake and wait on the day. I take my cares and concerns and put them on paper and send them off in prayer. On the back patio with my decaf, I let things come and I let things go.

Just as I make the same coffee every morning, I find that . . .

I have to let the same things go most mornings.

I have to let go of what I picked up after the coffee and the quiet. Throughout the day between dishes and e-mails and making food and mothering, I find myself picking up what I intentionally put down, only a few short hours ago. Pick up toys. Pick up hurt. Pick up the phone. Pick up the fear. It’s not all negative, though. Actually, the things I tend to keep picking up and I hold the tightest to are not negative things at all. They are people that I love. They are dreams that I have. But I have to put them down too.

Just as I make the same coffee every morning, I find that I have to let the same things come most mornings.

I have to open my heart and my mind to love. Love that is too good to be true. Undeserved and unearned. As I lay down hurt, fear, loved ones, and dreams I make room for Love to fill where I am empty and to overflow into my day. I let peace come to push out worry. I let faith come to dismiss doubt. I let God’s goodness come and to be the theme of my story, rather than last night’s, last month’s or last year’s nightmare. I let love come and invade my life.

This is has been the pattern and the pace of my mornings this summer.

Reading truth. Writing out pains and dreams. Singing, “You can have it all Lord, every part of my world…”

I never thought I’d be a morning person. I never thought I’d drink decaf. I never thought I’d have four kids. I never thought I’d be living in the house I grew up in. I never thought my parents would divorce when I was in my late thirties. I never thought I’d feel so stuck and be changing so much all at the same time. I never thought surrender was necessary day after day.

“I never thoughts” both good and bad happen. And, when a negative “I never thought” happens surrender is the only trajectory to change the story.

Surrender looks a lot like letting go. Letting go of what we have a death grip on. And letting go of what we have picked back up – bit by bit or all at once. Surrender is simply letting go of what we are not meant to carry.

I let go and I let love come.

When the kids wake it’s loud and and wild and there is usually a fight about nothing and everything, until they get their cereal and a little t.v. They have their routine like I have mine. I’d like to tell you that their routine is morning reading or educational worksheets or something that makes me sound like the mom instagram says I should be. But no. The kids wake up and watch tv. They quiet their way into the day. Kind of like me.

We make messes throughout the day, my kids and I. The boys build things with their imaginations and wooden blocks. I wonder what it is that I’m building throughout my day? With one swoop they knock down what they just spent an hour constructing. They laugh. They walk away. They can build again tomorrow, tonight or whenever the rain comes. They don’t bother with picking up. Maybe I’ll do it for them. It’s not a care or concern. They have other things to imagine, now. They let ideas come.

At the end of the day, what we’ve built and the messes we make are not what matters. It can all get knocked down in one swoop. And it can be cleaned up. I’m convinced it’s what we carry that matters. What we carry from one day into the next. What we won’t lay down or let go of, what we won’t let love invade.

Summer mornings will soon turn into fall. I’ll find myself in my bedroom in a blue chair rather than sitting across from the pink patio sofa, but I pray the pattern and pace of my mornings will remain the same.

Before the house wakes, I gingerly shimmy out of bed, tip-toe into the kitchen, trying to step around the creaks and toy cars, to make my cup of decaf. I sigh, almost every single day, in remembrance of caffeine and it’s magical ability to take the edge off of morning and myself. I let nostalgia pass as I pour my hazelnut coconut milk creamer and give thanks that the aroma is the same and that I have warm drink to nurse on a chilly day in my blue velvet chair. I take a book, a Bible, a journal and a pen. I take my tired self and sit and wake and wait on the day. I take my cares and concerns and put them on paper and send them off in prayer. In my bedroom with my decaf, I let things come and I let things go.

What is it, good or bad, that you may need to surrender today, and maybe again, tomorrow too?

Let go and let love come.