Gifts of Monday

Birds cry and sing and flutter, dancing, prancing, dodging the falling flakes of spring’s snow. The ache and sorrow of changing seasons, the birth of new life, these pangs caress building and vehicle and pedestrian with their hopeful shower of frozen tears. Wind hushes her song to listen for spring’s heartbeat. And it is a gift.

Breaths of warm exhale, the world roused tenderly from winter slumber, the stillness of new season’s morning: these awaken the heart to dream, to praise, to love the sun-Maker. And it is a gift.

His smile, drawing life from immobile muck, coaxing window ledge plants to stretch from drowsy cold, eases the heart, and causes it to rest and delight. And it is a gift.

In a war-torn, ransacked world, He makes the rain fall on the just and the unjust, and calls the sun to rise on the evil and the good. His smiling moon bids us goodnight. And I wonder why He ordained for its cheery face to look on our ravaged planet. Does the other side of the moon frown? We cannot see it.

Nauseous with birth pains, the earth heaves and wretches, and we know afresh our own wretchedness, and we realize anew His mercies. And it is a gift.

Awakened to our own dullness, shaken mildly or wildly from our stupor, we ache from our long slumber. Stretching hurts—the soul, the body, the mind, the spirit. He energizes, and we obey His rousing call, wishing to feel more, to live better, to hope deeper, to give significantly. And it is a gift.

We discover our brokenness, and encounter our Healer. And it is a gift.

It is all a gift, because He is good, and He is sovereign.

And we can only receive His gifts with thanks, or refuse His gifts and exist destitute.

Give us grateful hearts, O God, to see and receive and thank You for your gifts.