When You Miss the Sunrise, Here’s How to Still Fill Your Morning With Hope

It sounded like a prank call, but I promise we were serious. Seriously set on seeing the sunrise in a city where we’d spend spring break. This was before the days of smartphones to check the weather app. So we did what made most sense to our college student brains—call local numbers in the phone book to ask when the sun rises.

I think of it now as radiant pink entrances us en route to school. These sunrise spottings almost make me like Daylight Savings. Almost.

Since I started running, I catch every sunrise I can. I time my runs down to the minute so I can capture the colors from the church at the crest of the hill. But on school days, I usually miss the sun breaking through the night . . . except when Daylight Savings aligns the time.

A sunrise feels like a God-hug in the middle of the rush to get to school. A splash of His endless creativity. The visible evidence that He is always watching over us. 

Or, as Jennifer Dukes Lee writes in her book How to Love Your Morning, that He is watching with us. In her captivating story-telling style, she paints a picture of a God pointing our eyes to the sunrise He created for us. I don’t want to spoil it for you, so you just might need to read the book yourself! (This story is in chapter two.)

For now, here’s a line of hers to hold onto:

There is no God like our God, who deliberately chooses to sit with us in every darkness, while we wait for the light of morning. Some mornings, He’ll ask you to stand up and fight against the hard things you’re facing. Other mornings, he’ll ask you to simply sit down beside him and trust that his mercies really are new.

– Jennifer Dukes Lee | How to Love Your Morning

Brand new mercies for every hard and holy morning. Because our souls testify that they’re not exclusive, but interlaced. We face the ache of all that’s still being redeemed–from the vantage point of being near an overwhelmingly holy God.

New Mercies Nevertheless

Maybe you’re not a catch-the-sunrise type of gal. Mornings are your least favorite time of the day. 

You sleep with your phone in your hand so you can hit snooze the millisecond it sounds. You greet the day with a grumble . . . and a giant cup of coffee. The day seems miles ahead of you before you can even get going.

But the new mercies God provides? You’d take a double dose. With espresso.

Turn with me to Lamentations 3:22-23, where we find the promise of fresh mercy every time we rise.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;

    his mercies never come to an end;

they are new every morning;

    great is your faithfulness.

(ESV)

The ever-steady, unending love for you that beats in the heart of God means new mercies nevertheless.

New mercies for the mornings your dream snaps in half.

New mercies for the mornings you chide yourself for something you forget.

New mercies for the mornings you need a re-do.

New mercies for mornings-on-the-go and sick-in-bed mornings, as well as the ones you’re up early to walk/run a marathon.

Jennifer firmly believes that mornings are less about the time we get up and more about the way we start our day, no matter the hour. 

She holds that we can begin with hope because God goes before us. We can be grounded in gratitude, no matter how little our time or stressful our season.

In fact, as Jennifer explains,

The God of the sanctuary is also the God of the living room recliner, the God of the cubicle, the God of the nursery rocking chair. He’s the God of the commute, when you can count your blessings on the way to the office. He’s the God of the kitchen, where you can tell him how grateful you are for daily bread—and daily coffee. He’s the God of the laundry room, where you thank God for the people whose clothes you fold. He’s the God of the hospital room and the doctor’s office and the hospice house, where you defiantly say every morning, “God, I’ll praise you anyway.”

– Jennifer Dukes Lee | How to Love Your Morning

A Dare to Love Your Mornings

Did you catch that line about a marathon? That was no accident. One of my favorite memories with Jennifer was the day we completed Grandma’s marathon together. The sun had already risen by the time my barely-on-time bus pulled up to the drop-off zone for the start line, but God’s mercy isn’t squeezed when you’re rushed or drained when you’re weary. It sustains far better than any runner’s gel. It laces your morning with grace for exactly where you are.

Even when it feels too early.

Even when you’re tired.

Even when the end is 26.2 miles away.

Even when you wish the moment didn’t have to end.

If you’ve never gotten to hear Jennifer Dukes Lee speak before, she’s as genuine on stage as she is in her books, which is exactly how authentic she was every step we took along the edge of Lake Superior that day. I hope that you’ll give mornings a chance, even if you’re skeptical, because your morning–no matter when it starts–is pivotal to how the rest of your day unfolds. 

It’s a chance, as Jennifer will say, “to love God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength” (Matthew 22:37-38).

An invitation to fresh-baked mercies, engraved with your name.

Let’s pray.

Lord of endless hope and personalized mercies, thank you for the way You love us, before we’re at our best, before we even want to be awake. Stir Your hopefulness in our hearts as we seek to love You with the entirety of our being. May the grace and goodness we find in the morning ripple into the rest of our day, into the conversations we enter and the quiet gratitude that smiles through our eyes.

In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Just a friend over here in your corner,

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What if you gave your faith the chance to ripple right into your neighborhood? These quick tips provide a wide variety of baby steps to help you begin to build friendships with your neighbors. When we get close to God and let others get close to us, the things God is working out in us can show.

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