The world's a bleeding mess, God. It's time to raise praise anyway. For faith, family and friends, always at the top of my list. But for other things too.
In these days of tremendous trouble everywhere, thank you for good and bad news. One reminds me to pray, the other to praise: Thank you for the abducted child returned, the downgraded storm, the building that stood, the just sentence, the inspiration of a great life well lived..
Thank you that Dad and I got to share birthdays last week. Fifty-five alive, and eighty-eight at the gate - how neat is that? Thank you for his embrace, and my heritage of grace.
For tomorrow's hope, and today's strength, thank you, Lord. For my body; for legs that can still walk a mile, hands and mind to do good work, and arms to embrace my best loves. (And thanks for keeping your angels on duty when one of those faced danger on the highway last week.)
Thank you for your Word; for those who live it well and those who speak it true. For Jesus who walks beside, and for strong gusts of Spirit-wind that blow me right.
Thank you for my trials: they are the means through which you pour on layers of grace. For each day's little victories, and the hard stuff that make them possible, I praise you too.
Thanks for the people who make me feel small - and for putting those verses in the Bible that say you see and care for the little and the least.
Thank you, too, for the gift of being needed, called on, consulted, demanded of and expected of. Remind me often, Lord, that you put me here to be used; that an obligation-free life is generally a useless life.
Remind me also when it's time to say no.
Thank you for open door, and for Divine inspiration to sprinkle a few good words in the lives of so many good people.
At the fringe of fall, I thank you for nature's nearby beauty. For the last vase of summer (pink daisies in the old stump garden, an ambitious sunflower poking its head over the edge of the roof, white petunias that have avoided the early killing frosts) and the seed packet of spring: zinnia, hollyhock, sunflower, and Jacob's ladder.
Thank you that from our own soil and your gracious hand, we now have raspberries in the freezer, potatoes the Preacher grew, and tomatoes without blight. From others' dirt, we have so much more.
Thank you that there's always enough to share, and thank you for doing that first.
For these and a thousand other blessings, I praise God from whom all blessings flow.
