I’ve always been one for routine. I love schedules, routines, and all things organization. I’ve been often teased that that is not normal at all for an artist, that artists are sporadic, spontaneous, and all over the place. But while my husband can sometimes squeeze a little bit of spontaneity out of me every once in a while, I prefer my regular every day schedule. However, as all of you other mom’s know, having a newborn means very little consistent routine! These first couple of months have meant a lot of flexibility for my schedule-loving self, but now that she’s on a fairly regular schedule (all the praise hands), I’ve been able to settle into a new normal.
Before she was born, I would wake up and spend time reading and praying first thing each day. But the last couple of months of waking up on her schedule made that a lot more difficult. These past couple of weeks, though, I’ve started waking up a little bit before her to make sure I get some good time in which has been so refreshing. However, I realized that I hadn’t been setting aside time to paint in Bible and I genuinely missed it so I set out to squeeze it back into my daily schedule.
I decided to starting praying and painting through Psalms. So each morning, I wake up, pour myself a bowl of something delicious, and snuggle up to read scripture, write in my prayer journal, and then spend a little bit of time praying and painting one page of Psalms a day. I love that the Psalms cover so many different prayers – petition, praise, etc. – and often push me to pray for things I wouldn’t have though to pray for on my own. Sometimes my brain doesn’t feel like it’s quite functioning all the way early in the morning, either, so being able to pray words that are already written gives my prayers a better vocabulary and focus! I love that praying through scripture is essentially just praying the Word of God back to Him.
Taking the time to also paint on the pages is such a helpful reminder for my visual brain. All throughout the day I’m reminded of the verses I prayed through that morning and the pictures I painted along with them! This morning I decided to try watering down the Illustrated Faith paints to be a watercolor consistency and I just LOVE how vibrant they dried!! I’ll definitely be using them like this again soon!
For all of you young mommas, how do you still get time to read and pray with little ones running around?
ESV Single Column Journaling Bible | Illustrated Faith by Bella Blvd .65 Pen | Illustrated Faith by Bella Blvd .25 Pen | Illustrated Faith by Bella Blvd Paints
