Worship Wednesday: A Winter Prayer

For Worship Wednesday today, I want to share my journal entry from yesterday:

Today as I was walking Toby, I was observing the trees and the sky. It looked and felt like winter. It was quiet, still, cold and a bit dreary. In the past, this kind of day would have really depressed me, and I would not have been able to find anything to be thankful for or any reason to praise the Creator of it all. However, today, I saw an odd beauty in the dull, gray day. I started thinking of Him, the Light of the World, and how He really shines on a day like today. Oh, the stark contrast! The God of love and light is with me on a cold, gray, lonely day. His presence can be felt and is magnified in the dark, dull and dim. I began to compose a poem in my head as I ended my walk. Here is that poem:

My Winter Prayer 

On this quiet, gray winter day

Cold and cloudy, dull and dim

Set Your spark of light within me

Warm me with Your loving hand 

Light Your flame of love inside me

Let the embers drift away

May they warm one cold and lonely

Waiting for a hopeful ray

In this season dark and dusky

Cold and weary, frozen through

Thaw our hearts and warm our souls

With sunshine, fire, and flame of You

Oh the joy of feeling His presence no matter what the climate in our life may look like right now! How wonderful to be able to set our hearts toward our God in worship in every season!

A Portrait of Peace

There is much that I would like to share on the blog, but I haven't really been able to get my thoughts together and make time for possibly lengthy blog posts. However, I do want to continue to share some thoughts and insights that come my way. So, for the next little while, I may be making a series of brief posts like this one.

I have begun to read the New Testament from the very beginning, and as I was reading in Matthew 8 today, I had a God moment. Being the second week of advent, we have been focusing on peace at church and in personal advent studies. My readings don't always relate to each other, but today God pieced things together so beautifully. He gave me a portrait of peace.

Matthew 8:23-24 from The Voice translation:

"And then Jesus got into a boat, and His disciples followed Him. Out of nowhere a vicious storm blew over the sea. Waves were lapping up over the boat, threatening to overtake it! Yet Jesus was asleep."

In this account, Jesus is the perfect portrait of peace. Of course he is asleep during a vicious storm...He is the Prince of Peace! When we follow Jesus, we are certainly sure to come across some vicious storms ourselves, but we can allow Jesus to be our peace and then we too can rest in the middle of chaos and crisis. So, in this second week of advent, I celebrate the Prince of Peace and ask Him to be my peace today and always.