What A Habit Really is & Why We Need a Different Kind of (FREE) Habit tracker

When my 6 ft 5 ¾ son comes into the kitchen and announces that – “Well! we are already more than 1/12th through this year!” – I about choke on my early morning coffee and spew out all my caffeinated disbelief – because whhhaaaa!??! 

HOW IN THE ACTUAL WORLD are we all already here?

Every new year isn’t a race tracking the speed of your pace – but every new year is simply about being consistent and going the distance. 

I mean, I saw a meme somewhere: “Taking January as my free trial month, so my 2025 actually starts in February” and I’ve never felt so seen. I may, or may not confess, to having taken a screenshot to send it to the family chat with one too many laughing emojis. Because honestly, who wouldn’t be okay if January was the new bonus training course, running for a limited-time only, between Christmas and the real February start of the new year?

Because turns out? 

Every new year isn’t a race tracking the speed of your pace – but every new year is simply about being consistent and going the distance. 

And every day is about getting out of bed, putting feet to the floor, putting some clothes on, and putting one foot in front of the other, simply keeping the cadence of grace and going the pace of God. 

When that 6 ft. 5 ¾  son of ours used to be small enough to fit on my lap, I was reading a story aloud to him and his little sister curled in close, reading how this one young woman in the story had gone ahead every morning and just put on her “habit.”

And his little sister had patted me on the shoulder to get my attention and asked, “But what’s a habit?”

A habit is something that is worn , a habit something that you put on, that you pull over you. A habit is something that covers you.

And I explained what a habit is, though I hadn’t actually thought of it that way until that girl in the book had “pulled on her habit”…

A habit is something that is worn , a habit something that you put on, that you pull over you. A habit is something that covers you.

A habit is what clothes you.

Our big-boy-who-then-was-little and his baby sister had nodded, turned back to the story’s page, waiting for me to read the next line. But I was completely struck:

What are the habits that we wear? What are the habits that clothe us?

Maybe every day isn’t so much about getting new habits down — as it is about putting those new habits on , about wearing your habits?

There is nothing that doesn’t keep compounding. Everything keeps adding up to something.

Our habits are the way we wear our hours;  our habits are how we clothe our days. Our habits cover us and clothe us and our habits become us… and make us becoming… making us beautiful.

Standing there in the kitchen, with 1/12th of the year behind us, and 11/12ths of the year ahead of us, standing there in a a pair of threadbare jeans with my cup of coffee, I smile:

Standing in an imperfect place is always the perfect place to begin.

And you have to intentionally keep beginning:

There is nothing that doesn’t keep compounding. Everything keeps adding up to something.

Habitually do the same thing everyday, and you eventually find yourself a new person.

Habitually do the same thing everyday, and you eventually find yourself a new person.

And the way in which we live our moments, our choices for the gift of the next 24 hours, are all adding up to what’s clothing us, what covers us – like the pieces of a quilt.

Take a few scraps of moments to be in the Word and pilgrimage with the Word Himself, to be so close to Him, that you begin to walk like Him.

Then stitch that to a patch of time for a prayer walk.

Quilt that to another habit – a daily 30 minute reading retreat, or going to sleep at a certain time, or journaling a page every morning, or moving your body to move the stress through –  and you begin to quilt together your own habit to cover you – a blanket of grace to wear like a glorious coat of many colors.

And maybe that’s the thing? 

In the midst of all kinds of isolation, maybe our days and habits don’t need more determination or motivation – maybe what our days and habits need to have is more community celebration !

Our habits need a community that sees us, and a community that celebrates us!

These habits that cover us and clothe us – they need patching together in a community of celebration , like a quilting party, a quilting bee, like an old-time quilting circle!

And because a habit is something that we wear , then good habits are less about controlling yourself – and more about clothing yourself in Christ . (Romans 13:14).

The bed I’m in the habit of making every morning, it’s covered with the double-ring quilt my grandmother gave us for our wedding more than a moon or two ago. And when I smooth out the quilt’s patches and stitches, I can feel the happy hope of it:

What if there was a quilting bee of all our habits, our own quilting circle, a quilting party, so there was a community celebration of the beauty of the habits that we are covering ourselves with?

And because a habit is something that we wear , then good habits are less about controlling yourself – and more about clothing yourself in Christ . (Romans 13:14).

Like a well-loved quilt stitched together over a year, over the days of a lifetime, our spiritual rhythms form a covering—a beautiful, lived expression of abiding in Him.

When life leaves you only scraps of time, be scrappy enough to quilt a masterpiece of a life.

The first coffee cup of the day’s done, that first habit of the day’s done – making our bed covered with my grandmother’s quilt, while I pray for a hurting friend to be covered in the comfort of Christ.

And after that habit of spending time in the Word, pilgrimaging with Jesus, being loved to life, I color a bit on my habit tracker that isn’t like all those hard and fast linear habit trackers, that look likes ranked lines of rigid rules…

Because the thing is:

When you realize what a habit really is – something that clothes and covers you — you realize you need a different kind of habit tracker.  You need beautiful habit tracker that clothes and covers you like a quilt.

The accomplishment of a day isn’t so much about accomplishing goals but abiding in God. 

And when you realize that we are already more than 1/12th through another year of your one and only life? You realize how this moment is a perfect time to begin with a beautiful and different kind of habit tracker, to do in a community – like your own quilting circle, your own quilting party – your own quilting celebration of a beautiful life.

And it’s happening even now:

When life leaves you only scraps of time, be scrappy enough to quilt a masterpiece of a life.

And feel it come at the end of every day, the sure relief of it:

The accomplishment of a day isn’t so much about accomplishing goals but abiding in God.

That is the comfort that pulls up over everything: that all is covered with brilliant grace.

FREE HABIT TRACKER: CLOTHED & COVERED IN CHRIST

This free 40-day habit tracker is an invitation to cultivate rhythms of prayer and presence. Each day,
as you engage in your chosen sacred rhythm, you’ll fill in a quilt square — stitching together a beautiful life woven together with Christ’s love…

And this beautiful, different kind of Habit Tracker is our free thank you gift to you, for your support and pre-order of “Loved to Life: a 40-Day Pilgrimage with Love Himself that will Change Your Life”

“Loved to Life” is a 40-Day VISUAL Pilgrimage with Jesus, through the book of John, that will:

give you enlightening insights to calm your real worriesground your identity in who you really are, regardless of failuresspeak to your deepest doubts in a profoundly steadying wayand walk you in fresh, intimate way with Jesus, Love Himself, that will be life-changing! 

PRE-ORDER “Loved to Life” HERE & claim all your free gifts, including this free habit tracker, as our heartfelt thanks for your support!