WATCHWORD:
Do not grieve, for the joy of the Lord is your strength… Nehemiah 8:10
So, do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand… Isaiah 41:10
The Lord is my strength and my song… Exodus 15:2
Meditation:
Last Resort?
Earlier this week, I was contacted by my editor who explained there were two soft spots in my manuscript that I needed to address, and that otherwise it was ready to go to formatting. Formatting is the step before design and publication, so I was both excited and a bit intimidated by a real or imagined deadline.
Within an hour, I was hard at work addressing those soft spots, making corrections along the way and preparing to send it back to my editor. I was so satisfied with what I had done in making those adjustments that I relaxed with a little Netflix, and that night slept like a baby. So, so much at peace.
The next day, I was excited to return to my MacBook, to finish and send it back to my editor. But, when I tried to open up the page that I had work so diligently on the day before, I could not find it! For a while, I remained calm and collected as I worked my way through my files. Still no success.
I thought I might have inadvertently deleted my work, so I went through the whole recovery process. Still no success. My calm exterior was beginning to crack.
I consulted a techie friend, but her PC knowledge did not match my Mac need. Panic slowly began to slip its slimy fingers into my calm exterior. By noon, I was frantic. There might have been tears! I scolded myself, had a bit of lunch and then turned to my port of last resort, I prayed! Dear, Lord, once again, I give this all to You, knowing that You, who began this good work will carry it on to completion. Thank you, Lord. Amen.
I returned to my Mac, and, with a hopeful heart, I resolved to start over and move on. The second time around addressing those soft spots was different. I could not reconstruct yesterday’s writings, but todays were soon filled with surprises; twists I had not considered, new and logical additions to the story, and conclusions that fit so well. Let me correct that, NOT surprises, but graces, blessings right there for my asking.
Today, that manuscript is back in the hands of my editor, and my peace of mind is now recovering. I guess, recovery did work – I recovered! Thank you, Lord.
In another story of mine, there is a chapter entitled The Ask, where little angels in training are watching a mortal in an abandoned chapel, and relating her behavior to Jesus teachings. The mortal is desperate and lost, and she finally surrenders and calls upon the Lord for help. The little angels, watching from the Heavenly Vast, correctly call it, The Ask, and are rewarded by their teacher.
How often have we worked ourselves into a real problem, painted ourselves into a corner, gotten ourselves in a bind, hit ‘delete’ when we meant ‘print’, talked ourselves into a quandary, stuck our foot in our mouths, etc. And, then, as a last resort, prayed? A last resort, not a first resort. Not a, “good morning, Lord, thank you for the day, I give it all to you”. Hardly ever a word like, “thank you Lord for this adversity that I’m going through. I know it passed through Your hands, so I’ll assume it’s for my own good and I know you are in charge, so I surrender it all to you”.
Oh no, we know so much better about how to run our own lives and we do such a good job of it. Want proof? Just look: Oh, here we are in isolation (Ah, okay). Our nation is suffering (I know). We’ve lost 100,000 of our neighbors (Sob, Anger). We wonder where civility went? (Where did it go, will it return?) We are like that man in the pit, yelling for help, and a friend comes, jumps into the pit with us because he knows the way out. Jesus, our Lord and Savior is that friend, and this pit, that we are in, will soon be nothing.
Will we now call on that ‘last resort’, call on the Lord? Will we ever start the day calling on Him? Will we only find the Lord in the ambulance, being rushed to the hospital? Will we ever come to the point where we realize we are a child of God, which means that God is our parent. God is available all the time, every time. These are the days that the Lord has made…for us. Do you know that? Amen
Bulletin Board:
Just for grins – A leprechaun rents a room in an inn and the landlord is plagued by the creature who, each evening, prevails upon him to lend it a piece of string and part of a banana. The first evening it was a half, the next a quarter, then an eighth. Each time with a piece of string. Each night, an explosion occurs in the room given to the leprechaun, increasing in violence as the quantity of banana decreases, beginning with a mere ruffling of the bedclothes and ending in the complete destruction of the inn. Finally, with the inn utterly, destroyed, the landlord begs to know what the leprechaun has done and the leprechaun at last agrees to tell him but only on the condition that he never tells anyone the secret… And to this day he never has.
Closing Prayer:
Dear Lord, There are so many things I take for granted. May I not ignore them today. Just for today, help me, God, to remember that my life is a gift, that my health is a blessing, that this new day is filled with awesome potential, that I have the capacity to bring something wholly new and unique and good into this world. Just for today, help me, God, to remember to be kind and patient to the people who love me, and to those who work with me too. Teach me to see all the beauty that I so often ignore, and to listen to the silent longing of my own soul. Just for today, help me, God, to remember You. Let this be a good day, God, full of joy and love. Amen.
(Another Morning Prayer by Martin Luther)
