If you have read my previous post, you can probably guess that I am not a morning person.
For 16 years of my professional life, when I went to work I drove east across the lake near our house. If only I could have pulled over and stopped every morning to wait for the day to complete its awakening. This is where praise and thanksgiving became a daily habit and a sure reminder of God’s love for me.
Every morning was and is a masterpiece!
I know, what about the mornings that are stormy? Those too!
A gift from the Original Artist’s Hand. The purples, oranges, pinks, blues, reds, black, grey in a myriad of combinations; His brush strokes cross the sky, reflected in the dark waters of the lake on those mornings when the sun is about to break through. Other mornings, the raindrops hammer the windshield. I can barely see the dark boiling clouds. The greys, the navies, the silvers, and the black surround me. My favorite mornings, the days that vision is obscured- totally white-grey curtains of fog. I open t he window, turn the radio off and just enjoy the subdued sounds, muffled in the distance. The cool moist vapor floating through the window onto my face is a reassuring touch. And finally, a Christmas gift, no matter when it happens in Texas- snow. We get “snow days” in Texas, some years 2 or 3 days, some years none. When it comes, it’s an excuse to celebrate. So, no matter how little, whenever there is snow = no school. Those are the days I stand outside and just absorb the silence down into my soul. He gives me something that no one else ever could.
I told you they were gifts!
His Masterpieces were His reminder to me that I was not lost in the struggle in the night; that each day’s arrival presented a new opportunity. Those work days and the struggles in the night have passed; but whenever I see the gift of a new morning I am doubly blessed and speechless in thanksgiving for the reminder that He paints the sky for me.
Here’s where the screeching halt comes in and the sugar is scraped off the screen. I will continue to say that prayer is extending my trust to Him and to His Will. Praising Him and offering my thanksgiving for all He has provided proves my trust in Him. Regardless of my circumstances, I praise God for who He is and am thankful for all things. I do not do this only if I feel like it- a lot of times I don’t really feel like it. But my faith is built on what I know of Him and His Character, not on my feelings. I am compelled to do so because He loves me, because I trust Him and because I believe that what He says He will do. Paul expresses it best for me in Ephesians 1:3-6-Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves.
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his;
we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. Psalm 100