Thanksgiving month. Lots of people are practicing 30 days of thanks. I’m one of them.
I’ve given thanks for an extra hour in the day on Sunday; a handed-down kitchen table crowded with friends; a rainy day and a warm fleece blanket; the woods.
Today I woke a little stumped. A first-grade family interview project on a holiday horizon, and an elder’s “no” typed quietly across a page that screamed much more.
As Hezekiah spread a message before the Lord, I kneel before my God and do the same–Bend down, O Lord, and listen.
Lord, this is what I’ve got. Look. This is what’s going on.
The books each have a word for me, and my greedy hands grasp them for comfort when my ears need to hear love from a Father.
2 Kings 19: things happening today were planned long ago. God knows.
Hebrews 1: God named Jesus his son. And because of God’s great love for the world, Jesus died on my behalf, so that I could be reconciled to a Father and called his daughter–a co-inheritor with Christ.
Hosea 12: the boasting of chasing, cheating, lying, violence, pride. But God tells, “I am the Lord your God.”
And Psalms, closing:
Praise the Lord!
Praise the name of the Lord!
Praise him, you who serve the Lord, Psalm 135:1 NLT
Psalm 136:1–
Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!
His faithful love endures forever.
(And it was already italicized for me. Like it was saying, don’t miss this.)
2 Kings 19, I read of crops and feeding and I sit here meditating on generational sin.
This year you will eat only what grows up by itself,
and next year you will eat what springs up from that.
But in the third year you will plant crops and harvest them;
you will tend vineyards and eat their fruit. 2 Kings 19:29b NLT
And I think on life, when we do it ourselves. And what springs up from that in a next generation–without intention and cultivation–or God. But the third year, you will plant the crops and harvest them; you will tend the vineyards and eat their fruit.
Lord, it stops here. Help me to plant a crop for your harvest, one that bears fruit for your kingdom, and even for my family to enjoy. God, I know family means a lot to you–you adopted us as sons and daughters. I know the utter hopelessness of love withheld in a broken world. And I am thankful your love endures forever.
Courtney (66books365)
Sixty-six books in a year 