The Monday After

What does the Monday after Easter look like?  The day after hours filled with study led by a radical?  The day after moments cherished and remembered and sanctified?  The day after I didn’t go to church because my baby was sick, but while at home felt God speaking to my heart through words that are more than letters and syllables and affixes of Latin and Greek.  Words that calm the soul and break the heart…….


“For in that day I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices.  But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people.  And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’  But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and….I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them day after day.”  Jeremiah 7:21-26

I don’t need to try harder.  God is trying more than enough. 

He commands me to obey and walk.  Persistently he reminds.

But so often I ignore and limp.  Everyday a trial for a weary soul that knows it should be rejoicing rather than restricting life to a grinding whine.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith.  And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” Ephesians 2:8-9

It’s not my own doing.  It’s a gift. 

A gift I can choose each day to open and receive.  And then share with others.

A dear friend who is mentoring me through the end of my career and the beginning of a new journey shared this experience with me. 

Because to read this and ponder and wonder and delight in the words is to surrender myself to something I have perhaps never truly experienced.

The unyielding, unchanging, unfathomable grace and goodness of God.

My list began today….

so many Thursdays I have linked up with Julia and struggled to find something to be thankful for, so today I made myself look around and see the goodness in the everyday. 

Please, God, let me unwrap tomorrow and treasure the gift.

For it is by faith….grace….hope….names I chose because I believe.

Names I must choose to live by.