By Barbara Rainey
First posted on EverThineHome.com
Last week I woke up early. I looked out the window to assess the time and assumed it was about 6 a.m. The sun wasn’t up but the sky seemed to be lightening in the east. My mind began working as it so often does in my interrupted sleep world.
“What should I write for our Christmas card, and for the next blog post … what do You want me to say, Lord?” Phrases began forming in my brain and I knew if I didn’t write them down I’d forget.
I rolled over to flip on the light and the clock said 4:45! Seriously? Not what I expected, but I was awake so on went the light switch, paper and pencil found in the bedside table and I began recording all the ricocheting thoughts and ideas. Thirty minutes later I turned off the light and went back to sleep. Thankfully.
As you begin your Thanksgiving week, one of the best weeks of the year for our family, here are some of the words from that morning in a prayer. May these words tune your heart to declare His praise.
Can You Hear Him?
Opportunities abounded
this year
for practicing … obeying … Your command:
“give thanks in all circumstances
for this is the will of God
in Christ Jesus for you.”
A voice, distant, but sure.
Our land, our world,
infected
by a new virus
sequestered by universal exile at home.
Can you hear it?
Our marriage, as others, exiled by resulting changes.
We two adrift in a life raft
together rowing to a new
as yet unseen
future.
Ears attuned.
Our history, His Story.
“There is nothing new under the sun”
the wisest-ever penned.
God’s people in multiple exiles
through the centuries
always hear Him,
see Him more clearly.
Moses exiled in the wilderness,
Judah marched to Babylon,
Israelites in Jesus’ day,
exiled at home … under Rome’s thumb.
A voice is calling …
Our 2020 exile
an offering, if we choose,
a sacrifice of
Thanksgiving,
prepares our hearts to welcome
Emmanuel
and
Christmas.
Our God with us.
The Word of the Lord …
Our traditions.