Confession: I am a night owl.

After being up with Kylee several nights ago, I still have my days and nights mixed up.  Even though this is the way I prefer it, I still had to learn a tough lesson on responsibility.

My post for yesterday, that did not actually get posted until early this morning, included the following:

And when my flesh fails and falls short, I will humbly approach the Lord thankful that He is faithful and His mercies are new every morning.

Only mere hours after this post, I failed and fell way short.  There are no excuses.  I was not dependable and downright irresponsible.  I know it is because of the choice I made in not getting to bed at a reasonable hour. 

First of all, the alarm to wake the kids for school was set, but I neglected to set the alarm for Bible Study.  My wonderful husband woke the kids and got them to school like he does every morning.  Colton and Kylee were still asleep so I decided to stay snuggled up in bed.  I awoke around 8:45am thanking the Lord that he had been my alarm so that I could at least throw myself together and make it to CBS.  I struggled for the strength to actually get up out of bed.  Why did I not immediately ask for that strength?  I do not know why, but I did not.  Another lesson I will have to learn the hard way.  I have done this before, and I obviously I still struggle with this at times.  Is this not similar to situations that I fuss at my eldest son for...repetitive disobedience for rather simple things?  Yes, it is.  I guess that makes me a hypocrite.  I do not like that word.  I definitely do not like when I have to confess it.  I will have to be sure to tell Calvin of my failures and hope that helps him too.  I will also have to try and be more merciful.  Thankfully, my Lord is merciful and loves me despite my failures. 

Evidently, I dozed off, but then suddenly jumped out of my bed thinking it must have only been a few minutes.  I hurried to my bathroom, washed my face, brushed my teeth, and put on my contacts.  On my way to wake up Colton, I passed the clock.  I noticed it said 10:15.  WHAT?!?  How did that happen?  You mean I dozed off for over an hour.  Well, actually, closer to an hour and a half.  Crazy.  Crazier is that Colton and Kylee were still asleep.  Needless to say, I did not make it to Bible Study, and I am supposed to be a leader.  This year I am teaching the baby class.  Honestly, it is more like I love on the babies for several hours.  I do not really do a lesson with them, but we do sing to them.  I was so embarassed to have to notify my children's director what had happened.  I admitted my failure with no excuses. 

When I have a responsibility and people are depending on me, staying up too late cannot be an excuse.  I do believe there are some acceptable excuses, but this is not one of them.  I must admit I am nocturnal; I am a night owl to the fullest.  I am so much more productive at night maybe because it is just me and it is peaceful.  I have tried the going to bed early and morning thing, but it just does not work for me.  I have prayed my whole life to be changed and become a morning person.  I know the Lord can change this, but it has not happened yet even with my attempts to valiantly try.  However, He is in the process of changing some other things right now that are nothing short of a miracle and amazing, but I will save that to share another day.  Maybe this is on His list, but we just are not there yet.  Probably because these other changes are a higher priority.  I must admit that I am really finding joy in these changes! 

I did receive some night owl vinidication in one of the several books I am reading right now.  Dr. Richard Swenson in his book More Than Meets the Eye states that he is also a night person.  He says that he does his best writing from 10pm-7am, and something to the effect that we would not want to read anything that he does not write during those hours.  (By the way, this is a great read about God's power and design!)  I do not know that I am ready to jump on the bandwagon that I was created to be a night person; probably because I would like to work my way to becoming a Proverbs 31 woman.   Nevertheless, it was still nice to read this and be okay with it for now.  I will say that I still try to limit how late I stay up because it is really hard to be an effective Mommy without  a lot of sleep, and I am not one that does well on too little sleep.  Hmmm...  Staying up late, but my body needs lots of sleep...that is a double whammy!  Ouch.

I will be more disciplined tonight...Hoot.Hoot.
Much Love and Goodnight,
Callie Ann

I thought I was done, but I went to grab Dr. Swenson's book to make sure I had the right title and decided to post the early bird/night owl excerpt:

This leads to the somewhat related and often misunderstood issue of night owls versus early birds.  It is important to understand that there are legitimate physiologic differences between the two.  Without a gracious understanding of these differences we tend to unnecessarily criticize one another.  The early bird thinks the night owl is lazy for not rising to meet the dawn, while the night owl thinks the early bird has no stamina for late night work.  Personally, my productivity is greatly enhanced in the evening and even late night.  Ninety percent of my writing occurs between 10:00 P.M. and 7:00A.M.  If I were to switch styles and get up early to write, it would be a complete waste of time.

The above was taken from the brain/sleep section of his book.  (I even feel more reassured about being a night owl after re-reading and typing out this excerpt.  I am not sure if that is a good or bad thing.)  He also states that God could have created us without the need for sleep, but He didn't and for purposes and reasons only He fully knows.  Did you know that fish do not sleep (they do not even have eyelids)? that Giraffes only sleep about 10 minutes per day? that dolphins sleep with just half of their brain at a time so the other half can keep them swimming? that cows get three hours of sleep every twenty-four hours?  Fascinating!  Okay, I will stop now.  Goodnight for real this time.