Is there anything in this world that you can rely on wholeheartedly? And at the end of the day know that it is (for a fact), still there?
I’m sitting in the dark blogging this morning because I’m doing all that I can to make sure my five-year-old doesn’t wake up.
I need this time alone this morning. But I am not alone. God is with me. And that has proven over the few decades that I have been alive, to mean something.
Every morning (since last summer), I have gotten into the habit of waking up and doing a devotional each day. I used to do this way back when I first moved home after my divorce while smoking in my parent’s garage. Now, I sit in the dark and type and blog after having a cup of coffee. Oh, how things change.
My divorce was around ten years ago. I don’t remember the exact dates, as the concept of time has always been somewhat of a mystery to me.
But I do remember (quite well) smoking cigarettes one after the other in that garage at my parent’s old place. It was one of the first times I grew to know Jesus. As odd as it sounds, it’s true. I would wake up each morning before anyone else did, and take my devotional packet, the one that mom would get from Dr. Charles Stanley or something else I could pick up from “Dad’s shelf” and sneak it outside with me.
Between the readings and watching the sun rise each morning, I healed. But it was He who healed me.
We can give due credit to those who surround us here on earth that offer their support and love, but there is nothing like Jesus who saves. I remember being saved. How it felt, and even now realize the difference between earthly awakenings and spiritual ones. They are magnificent and there isn’t anything like a spiritual awakening here on earth that evokes the same type of feelings. They are out of this world.
Yesterday we went to the playground because it finally stopped raining for one day! I got a little too much sun and I am burnt a tad but I’m not complaining! Give me the fruit of the spirit any day of the week. I have always loved the sunshine. It’s the learning to appreciate the cloudy days sometimes that seems almost the hardest. But I’ve made big changes and moves (even physical ones) since my divorce and this morning I was reminded of that. And I was very thankful.
Our neighbor, is one of the best people I know. And yesterday he knocked on the back door and offered to show my five-year-old the cicadas that were still hatching under some cool rocks in his yard. It was something, although simple grew to be one of the most meaningful times of the weekend.
“How old are you, honey?” he asked as he pulled the stones away.
After thinking for a moment, I said: “37.”
“Well you would remember then the last time the cicadas came, because it would have been roughly twenty years ago.” Seventeen I believe he said to be exact, but I can’t remember now…either way it made me flashback to roughly twenty years ago and the last time the cicadas came.
I was living in Denver at the time and attending the University of Denver’s Publishing Institute. It was the next step I did after graduating from college here in Pa, and one in which I thought…was going to take me to the big apple and attempt to tackle the big old world of Publishing.
Least did I know that God had other plans.
But there it was….twenty years. And here I am.
Can you remember where you were twenty years ago? I remember hearing those cicadas while walking on a sidewalk in Denver and wondering what the heck they were. Mysterious little creatures and creepy as heck. Either way I give thanks for them as they make part of God’s creations so miraculous. They are so intricate and show us all how magic can exist even in this world that we live in. To survive for seventeen years underground and somehow hatch seems to be a miracle, but it only indicates God’s power through the simplest devices if we are looking for them.
I pray you have a day that is full of small miracles, and that you look for them. And that you look at the passing of time with thankfulness and gratitude.
Amen!
“You of little faith, why did you doubt?” Matthew 14:31
Party Gatherings 