Holier by 8AM

My former morning routine had abs. Now it has grace.

If salvation depended on morning routines, I’d have backslidden before breakfast.

Once upon a time, I had a kick-ass morning routine: up by 5:15 AM, straight into workout clothes, pre-workout snack, Morning Pages, 30-minute strength session, shower, breakfast, and a devotional. All before 8 AM. God, I felt so good about myself. My morning routine started with a decent motivation: I had turned 40 and needed to build muscle. Soon, my overachiever self began to add more tasks that felt like the spiritual high road. It became as if I were racing God to some unknown finish line to get my prayers in before sunrise. Because we all know that mornings are the most holy of times. Then life happened. Dogs happened. And thread by thread, my perfect morning routine became unraveled. Somewhere between the increased responsibility of adulting, adding a second high-energy dog to our family, and the burnout of performative spirituality, the structure began to fray.

Now? I’m lucky if I’m up before 6 and make coffee before the dogs start tearing through the living room like they're late for a squirrel convention. I stay in my PJs till the last possible minute. Strength training happens at noon (and only a couple of times a week). And my devotional time consists of listening to a podcast on the way to the dog park. Somehow, hearing James Finley talk about the mystics through my earbuds while being pulled by an ecstatic husky has become a kind of lectio divina.

If I’m being honest, the unraveling of my morning routine has been difficult. I didn’t realize how much of my identity was wrapped up in an “holier by 8 AM” mentality. I used to believe that if I didn’t put the work in during the AM, God would be “Out of the Office” for the remainder of the day. Turns out that even when I sleep in, sip coffee on the go, and notice how the light hits the spring flowers, God still shows up.

The dog park isn’t exactly a cathedral, but it has a ministry all its own. The towering trees, greetings from friends, and the laughter of play all seem to join the Sacred Dance. When I’m at the park, I’m at the park and nowhere else. I’m present, moving with intention, and noticing. I get to witness the trees bloom in the spring and fade in the fall. Somewhere between the smell of morning dew and the husky stampede, I sense peace. Even Presence. It’s so ordinary I wouldn’t have dared compare it to a morning filled with scripture reading and prayer, but somehow it has become holy.

All of this has made me think differently about what spirituality looks like. In Rosemarie Carfagna’s Contemplation and Midlife Crisis, she writes about the “pause” that happens in crisis. Everything stops. We fall silent. “We become simply, humbly present to the moment, and we wait.”¹ Carfagna notes that contemplation invites the same posture. A sacred stillness. A pause that becomes a holy echo of “Be still and know that I am God".

Looking back, all those years of structured morning routines were still a kind of pause (just a busy one) filled with tasks. I see them now as training ground for a new kind of stillness. Not one defined by sweat and prayer but by fresh air and lingering.

There’s nothing wrong with having a morning routine. But there’s also nothing wrong with not having one and still believing your day can be holy. Midlife feels more like a season of unlearning than learning. Thousands of blogs have preached the importance of having a morning routine full of lemon water and gratitude journals. The pressure to feel productive the moment your feet hit the ground is real. But what if we let our feet rest just a bit longer? What if lingering in bed, watching the room grow with light, can be a spiritual practice? Even more so, what if our time in scripture isn’t ink on a page but listening to the birdsong out the window? Grace is not on a budget, my friends. Let’s bless the mornings we actually have.

A Blessing for the Dog-Walking, Oversleeping, Coffee-First Seekers

May your coffee be strong,
your leash untangled,
and your soul reminded that God is as close as your breath.

May you release your soul from the grip of productivity
and rest in the quiet miracle of Presence.

May your prayers become sacred pauses:
a deep breath,
a ray of light,
a still, small voice whispering,
“You are my beloved.”

And when your feet finally touch the floor,
may they carry the holiness of the morning with them.

Still in my pajamas, still beloved,

1. Contemplation and Midlife Crisis by Rosemarie Carfagna. Page 118