Sigh. What a day. This has been one of those days when I put on my cranky pants and anything anyone did annoyed me (no Abby, I won’t give you credit—doh!). On days such as these I wonder how a God can love someone such as me. But yet He does. Don’t ask me how, don’t ask me why.
Lately I’ve been learning from Madeleine L’Engle (the writer of the dreaded CIFA book, Walking on Water. It’s amazing how much more interesting books are when you aren’t forced to read them), the acclaimed children’s writer, whose books include A Swiftly Tilting Planet and A Wrinkle in Time—books I never understood when I read them as a kid. Anyway, in Walking on Water she is making the point that we often lose our child like creativeness, and it is often the artist who regains it. Remember being a kid and not wanting to go to sleep? The day was too exciting. You woke up and shot out of bed, barely pausing to rub your sleep filled eyes. Not a second could be wasted. What happened? L’Engle says:
“When we lose waking up in the morning as though each day was going to be full of adventure, joys, and dangers, and wake up instead to the alarm clock, and the daily grind, and mutter about TGIF, we lose the newborn quality of belief which is so lovely in the child.” (page 56)
Why can’t I wake in the morning filled with the wonder and awe of a child? The alarm blares, and I groan. What happened to the sense of adventure each day brings? I also think of another writer that I’ve been learning from. Reese Roper, and the rest of Five Iron Frenzy:
“When I was young, the smallest trick of light, could catch my eye, then life, was new and every new day, I thought that I could fly. I believed in what I hoped for, and I hope in things unseen, I had wings and dreams could soar, I just don’t feel like flying anymore. When the stars threw down their spears, watered heaven with their tears, before words were spoken, before eternity.
Dear Father, I need you, your strength my heart to mend. I want to fly higher, every new day again.
Man verses himself. Man versus machine. Man versus the world. Mankind versus me. The struggles go on, the wisdom I lack, the burdens keep piling up on my back. So hard to breathe, to take the next step. The mountain is high, I wait in the depths. Yearning for grace, and hoping for peace. Dear God… increase. Healing hands of God have mercy on our unclean souls once again. Jesus Christ, light of the world burning bright within our hearts forever. Freedom means love without condition, a beginning or an end.
Here’s my heart, let it be forever Your’s, only You can make every new day seem so new.” (‘Every New Day’ – Copyright (c) 1997 5 Minute Walk Music)
Let that be my prayer Lord. Maybe tomorrow I can wake up and find my cheery pants. Somehow they seem to fit a little better.
The history of writer Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich alone had me hooked: Nigerian father, Jamaican mother, married to a man of Croatian descent, she studied writing with Paula Danziger and Madeleine L’Engle.