A couple of summers ago I was convicted about how I spend my summer days. In Idaho as the summer heat intensifies so does the length of a day. I would stay up late and then sleep in without an alarm clock. As a teacher I had felt it my right to sleep in during the long summer days. But when I woke up I found that I had wasted so
many cool parts of the day. And my day would drag into the heat when I really didn't want to do much. So I ended up wasting most of my summers.
It was easier not to waste too much of the summer when my kids were young and not driving yet. I was needed to get breakfast ready and to shuttle them to practices and other fun summer things.
But when they grew up, as kids are supposed to do, and they weren't around very much, I found I had little to get up early for.
And so, one summer, not long ago, I asked God to help me wake up to catch all His sunrises! That summer I only missed 2 sunrises. I think I was travelling and messed up my time zone for one and the other I had awakened long before the sunrise with some summer ailment and then fell back asleep, getting much needed rest, but missed the sunrise.
I would post these sunrises that I found on my IG account (and it would then post over to my Facebook account). I found that people were looking for the sunrises. They would ask be about them. They would encourage me with words like, "keep chasing sunrises!" They would sometimes tag me in a sunrise photo that they took. It's been a fun journey and I'm looking forward to starting to chase sunrises less sporadically as my summer is fast approaching.
It's been a reminder of a few things:
God is faithful!
My friends encourage me.
Chasing Sunrises is hard work sometimes, but definitely worth it.