A Springtime Prayer

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The windows are open.  The birds are singing.  The sun is breaking through the budding tree limbs and the dewdrops that fell from the morning’s birth sparkle iridescent.  Spring is rising from the slumber of winter. 

Oh, how my whole being yearns for this time of year. 

While the necessity of winter’s dormancy is understood, its sleeping grayness wears heavy at the end.  When the early sprouts of spring break the ground, my heart rejoices for what is to come.

Most Gracious Father, you created heaven and earth – sun and moon – plant and animals.  You placed me in a time and a season for your glory.  My life’s breath comes from your lips.  This morning I rejoice in the new day.  As the dormancy of winter passes and my sleeping eyes awake to this new season, I seek your heart to follow.  May all that I think, say or do bring a smile to your face and glory to your name.  May I seek to be courageous enough to break those hard ground areas in my own life that have been long unattended.  Lord, till the soil of my heart so the seeds of your grace grow in and through me.  Thank you Father for reminders in creation that sing Truth into my heart – In Jesus name I pray.  Amen.

A New York State of Heart…

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Just a few days back home and my heart remembers… 

 

In a city that never sleeps there are too many whose sleep is now endless.  Only pools gather where our tears remain – where the waters fall deep into the abyss of forever.

 

 

Lessons learned in minutes can hang secure on walls and ceilings.

 

 

Teamwork accomplishes much when numbers may equal only a few.

 

 

Devastation here is more often behind closed doors where basements flooded and life floated.  Now, the slow process of beginning again hangs with each piece of drywall.

 

Please pray for Gus who is waiting patiently for his home to be finished and for the many just like him who are living in the after effects of Superstorm Sandy. 

 

FMF – Remember Oh Heart

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Remember, oh heart, when it all began in a little hospital in Nicaragua.  When I had to wrestle with heat and heart and came home changed by the experience.

 

 

Remember, oh heart, when I stepped off that plane onto the fractured ground of Haiti just 3 short months after the horrendous earthquake.  When I had to confront fear and desperation on a scale I had never known and came home nearly as fractured as the ground I stood on.

 

 

Remember, oh heart, the little Guatemalan boy who followed our bus for miles with a purpose and a plan – God’s plan – which unveiled a few days later when he gave his heart to Jesus.  When I had to confront my excess and emptiness and came home desperate for more of Him.

 

 

Remember, oh heart, the little girl here in my church homeless and helpless but still desperate to be the 5 year old she should be.  Where I had to confront it wasn’t just “over there” but it was right here at home.

 

Remember, oh heart, because tomorrow you go…where waves crashed and winds blew and homes floated.  And when I come home…I will once again be changed.

 

 

Today I am joining in with the Five Minute Friday prompt at LisaJoBaker.com. It is there we are given a prompt and then write for 5 minutes – no editing. Check out all the great posts!

Five Minute Friday

 

 

 

 

FMF – Sabbath Rest

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We run from task to task and place to place.  We carry our self-importance and wonder what the “world” would do without us.  We weigh ourselves down with things that were never ours to carry.  It is not what God desires and definitely not what He modeled for us.

On the seventh day He rested. 

He set aside the business of creating and rested in a day called “Holy”.  A day set apart as an example for us.

We don’t follow well.  We run ahead.  Blindly carrying our own importance as if it was what breathes life.   We forget that there is only One who can breathe life into that which has none.   There is only One who can call anything important and it truly be so.  There is only One who can call anything holy and he did – the seventh day.  A Sabbath set aside – holy – a life giving, life breathing rest.    

 

Today I am joining in with the Five Minute Friday prompt at LisaJoBaker.com.  It is there we are given a prompt and then write for 5 minutes – no editing.  Check out all the great posts!

Five Minute Friday

A New Day

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It is so quiet.  Just the gentle breeze whispers softly by as I begin this day – this new beginning – with a very grateful heart.

Yesterday was my last day at work.  21 years of working for the same institution.  Oh, how I struggled with this decision to leave.  I felt the rumblings of this call to new things long before yesterday. 

I argued.  I reasoned.  I ignored. 

Yet, the One who was calling waited patiently.  When my delay caused unnecessary pain, He reminded me of His desire. 

In the midst, I learned that delayed obedience is disobedience. 

This morning I was reminded of Jeremiah 29:11-13. 

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.  They you will call upon me and come and pray to me and I will listen to you.  You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

The One who laid the foundations of the earth; set the margins to the seas; knit my very being together in my mother’s womb has a plan for me (and for you).  His plan brings prosperity and when translated it is defined as completeness, peace, contentment. 

So this day, I settle in to the grace that comes from His hand.  I rest in the peace of His leading and the hope of a future planned before I ever knew.