I really love my life. This is the overwhelming thought as I sit here watching football on television in my pajamas (during the day!) after just coming back from picking up new books I’ve received from my apartment’s office. This is a rare post written on Saturday (I almost always schedule my Saturday posts) even though you are just seeing it on Monday.
Sure, I spend more time than I ought longing for more: a disposable income, a date, a boyfriend, a husband, a child, a brood of children calling me “mommy.”
But really, I love my life. I love the free-time, the solitude, the friends, the books, the work, the school, the family, the food, the football, the movies, the blogs. I love the responsibilities of being a student, a teacher, an employee, a churchman, and a friend. I love the relationship I have with my Lord and the opportunities I have to share that love with others.
So I’m choosing to be thankful. I have been overwhelmingly blessed, and I’m going to dwell on these things rather than those things I may wish I have.
This prayer has helped me as I’m seeking to commit it to memory. (source: The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions, edited by Arthur Bennett; emphasis added)
Thou eternal God,
Thine is surpassing greatness, unspeakable goodness, super-abundant grace;
I can as soon count the sands of ocean’s ‘lip’ as number thy favours towards me;
I know but a part, but that part exceeds all praise.
I thank thee for personal mercies,
measures of health, preservation of body,
comforts of house and home, sufficiency of food and clothing,
continuance of mental powers,
my family, their mutual help and support,
the delights of domestic harmony and peace,
the seats now filled that might have been vacant,
my country, church, Bible, faith.
But, O, how I mourn my sin, ingratitude, vileness,
the days that add to my guilt,
the scenes that witness my offending tongue;
All things in heaven, earth, around, within, without, condemn me–
the sun which sees my misdeeds,
the darkness which is light to thee,
the cruel accuser who justly charges me,
the good angels who have been provoked to leave me,
thy countenace which scans my secret sins,
thy righteous law, thy holy Word,
my sin-soiled conscience, my prayer and public life,
my neighbours, myself-
all write dark things against me.
I deny them not, frame no excuse, but confess, ‘Father, I have sinned’.
Yet still I live, and fly repenting to thy outstretched arms;
thou wilt not cast me off, for Jesus brings me near,
thou wilt not condemn me, for he died in my stead,
thou wilt not mark my mountains of sin, for he levelled all,
and his beauty covers my deformities.
O my God, I bid farewell to sin by clinging to his cross,
hiding in his wounds, and sheltering in his side.
(I won’t put their pictures up here without permission, but here’s one of my friend’s blindfolded for a birthday surprise several years ago. Since she’s blindfolded, it kinda looks like she’s doing this against her will, which I suppose she is.)
