Life

Thank you God for the wonder of my life. On days like today, when one of my children celebrates yet another year on this earth, I am bound to think about my blessings and be grateful once again for all of them. First and foremost among those blesings is my family - each member a special part of me and each one vital to the puzzle of who I am.

Help me never to take them for granted Lord. Help me to always remember that they were given to me for a reason - mine by design. Help me to never stop learning from them, and help me never to stop wanting them to be their best.

Most of all, thank you for loaning them to me.

Preparing for the crowds

Lord help me to be patient and kind this weekend. I have tried hard to be well prepared, to get my shopping all done and have my menus all planned - but I know that I will be challenged with crowds, and attitudes, and traffic in this, the last hurrah of the summer season. I need your help to do it with grace. It seems as though I start the summer with a smile but by the time Labor Day arrives I am about at the end of my rope. And I know that's not the way to show your face to the world.

So Lord, give me grace. And while you're at it could you throw in some nice weather too?

Morning chill

I am really cold this morning. It seems as though it is already September, although the calendar still says August. I hope this is not a harbinger of things to come. The Farmers Almanac says it is going to be a very cold winter.

I like snow but not as a steady diet. I would not be happy in a more northern clime, where snow removal is a big business and plows are used on a weekly basis. But the weather does make me wonder at God's creation. What a wonderful world this is, where moving from one latitude to another can change your daily routine drastically. From the tropics to the glaciers, God has made us an interesting world, isn't that true?

As full of ourselves as we humans get, we cannot control the weather. That is God's domain. (Although with global warming it seems we can eventually ruin even that part of God's gift if we choose to!) I stand in awe of the weather. And of everything that God has presented to us. May I never take it all for granted.

Just wondering

This is one of those days when I am just wondering what its all about. You know what I'm talking about - those rare times when you feel just sort of "odd" - sort of out of sorts and not quite on the same page as anyone else - almost like you stepped off a spaceship into a strange place where everything feels familiar...but not quite. Am I the only one that ever feels that way?

Lord, please use me today in a way I am not even imagining right now. Take this strangely odd day and make it something special. Help me find a way to reach out to someone else, to make a difference in someone's life - to just be fully alive. To feel life as it should be felt and know where I fit in the grand scheme of things.

Today I need to feel your love. Thank you for the peace I have that its there.

Peace

I love the peace of the early morning. I can sit in my office with the windows opened and not hear a human sound. No cars, no television - just the sound of the birds and the occasionaly rustling of a squirrel out in the garden to keep me company. These are God-times for me. I find that the early morning is second only to driving in the car as the best times for the spiritual conversations that keep me grounded and centered on Him.

Yesterday I was in the car a good deal of time as I battled traffic to and from Southampton on a busy day. I was able to really unburden my soul as I wound around the back roads, and I knew when I finally got home that I had been spiritually renewed.

Today it is especially early - for some reason I woke and knew I would not be going back to sleep. So I got up, dressed and came downstairs. This is a chance to spend quality time with God. Which is exactly what I am going to do....

Sunday

I can always feel the difference on a Sunday, even before I get out of bed. It's a day to relax, contemplate, worship, and recover from a long week.

When I woke up this morning I luxuriated in the day. It was chilly and I pulled the covers up high over my shoulders against the air, slowy coming out of the half-sleep that tells us our brains are stirring. Birds were busy getting their morning food, talking up a storm outside the window, and the rest of the world seemed quite still. Few cars drove by, and Sunday was emerging from Saturday as lazily as I was.

Thank you God for Sunday. Thank you for giving us this day of rest, for recouperation, for meditation, for relaxation. Thank you for giving us the chance to do nothing and not feel quilty about it. And thank you for the freedom to attend whatever church I choose and to pray - in public. Its a freedom we take for granted in this country and many rarely use. Don't let me take it for granted Lord. Help me to always make the most of it. Help me make the most of it today.

Thank you for Sundays.

Lazy days

This is one of those days I call "lazy days". Not that I haven't accomplished anything because I certainly have - I spent the morning cleaning the house and I surely did enough to feel as though I did not waste the day. But somehow if I am not working all day at something, if I'm sitting around watching TV or reading a book - or knitting on a cold winter afternoon - I feel as though I'm being lazy. I think it comes from my Puritan roots - or a mother whose mantra seemed to be "idle hands are the devils workshop". She was always busy doing something and if I walked in and found her sitting with a magazine she would appear embarrassed that I had "caught" her.

I'm not sure that Mom had it right. I think God delights in us enjoying his creation. And I think that a few hours spent in the backyard reading while enjoying the perfectly blue sky and the blissfully comfortable air is a form of worship in itself. I think that watching the snow fall and sitting in front of the fire can be a sacred experience. Because whenever I sit back and enjoy a "lazy day" my thoughts inescapably turn to God. I look in wonder at the world around me. I contemplate my many blessings. And I thank God for all of it.

Sorry Mom - I think you were wrong on this one.