Father, Thank You for an abundant squash harvest I continue to slice, dice, sauté, steam, freeze, bake and pickle. Yet, I realize I’m not the only cook who’s dealt with one-item menus. During the biblical exodus, Israelite cooks probably made manna bread, manna pie, manna fritters, manna casseroles and manna sloppy joes as they wandered in the desert. OMG … will my squash barrage last for 40 years too?
Do you like to ask for help? Me, neither.
Even as a toddler, I yanked my hand from my mother’s and ran into a street in downtown Indianapolis. Terrified by screeches and honks, though, I clung to her at the next crossing.
Maybe I learned I wasn’t ready to take charge of my life? Nope. Instead, I believed Mommy needed help with hers. She needed me to iron while she was busy with my baby sister. That I ironed my left hand (I still bear the scar) should have made me question my choices.
It did. I still avoid ironing whenever possible.
But cautions about so-called independence learned during childhood vanished during my teens. My friends and I knew everything. Parents resembled forerunners of ATMs, except they gave advice along with money.
I should have wondered why The Beatles, the 1960s epitome of youth and success, sang lines about needing help and growing older. John Lennon and Paul McCartney were only 25 and 23 when they penned “Help” and McCartney wrote “Yesterday.”
But I didn’t until I married and had our first baby. Where was the faucet to shut off drool, puke and pee? I finally admitted that perhaps … I needed guidance.
Did I ask my parents or in-laws? No. Instead, I consulted books.
Though I did learn from several good ones, none provided critical answers I needed.
Most of the books then and today tell us to look within. That we know all the answers.
Instead, shouldn’t we open the Book that tells us to look up? To realize Someone much bigger and smarter stands waiting to help us?
We Americans pretend every day is Independence Day — even in January. However, 2024 stretches before us, its kamikaze traffic already whizzing by. Can we really navigate it alone?
Or, when we cross unknown streets, should we reach for the Helping Hand always ready to guide us?
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Where does your help come from?
O Lord, It’s only October, but I can’t buy a can of beans without seeing a Santa Claus. You, who made the sun move backward to preserve daylight during an Old Testament battle — OMG, could you pause on lovely fall …
Image by Lars Nissen from Pixabay.
before we fast-forward to crazy Christmas?
Oh.
You want me to do it?
Image by Klaus Hausmann from Pixabay.
O Lord, sometimes I read Bible accounts that seem as if they should have been voted off the flannelgraph!
Image by Robin Higgins from Pixabay.
But, OMG, You tell the truth about humanity and good and evil.
Image by CCXPistiavos
One big reason why I believe You wrote them!
Image by Congerdesign from Pixabay.
Recently, my pastor, instead of dismissing the congregation after the benediction, seated us.
How could he? Everyone had closed their Bibles and grabbed their purses.
“We have a problem,” Pastor said.
A million-dollar error in our building project? Heresy in the articles of faith? The closing of Cracker Barrel?
He said, “We don’t know when summer’s over.”
For weeks, the church staff has trumpeted program changes in bulletin, website and email. Though Pastor performed the parental equivalent of holding our faces in his hands and articulating new schedules s-l-o-w-l-y, we’ve asked spouses. “Um, what time does church start?
Past decades, summer exited after Labor Day. As for equinoxes — spring never arrived in March, so why bow to September’s equinox for summer’s departure?
Opening school early has shaken our culture. Back-to-school sales start before the previous school year ends. Indiana’s General Assembly passed school-excuse legislation so county fair winners could participate in the state fair.
Once upon a time, children sent to bed during broad daylight assumed they’d committed major sin, or their parents suffered from psychosis. Now, kids consider such craziness normal. Soon, they’ll consider cleaning their rooms as natural as microwaving pizza bites. No wonder everyone worries about this generation.
This summer’s weather has reinforced bewilderment. Droughts during June fried Midwestern fields and gardens. Unheard-of July rains rescued us and produced bizarre green August lawns.
Early last week, night temperatures fell into the 40s. Before Labor Day, they soared into the 90s.
Should we rev up the air conditioner or the furnace this morning? How about this afternoon? This minute?
Covering all seasonal bases, we snuggle under blankets every night. Turn on air conditioning, start ceiling fans and open windows. No wonder we’re befuddled. We alternate hot chocolate and snow cones.
Besides all this, baseball, basketball, tennis, golf and football blare from screens. Aaaaugh!
Let’s switch from Daylight Savings Time now, instead of November — absorb maximum confusion like a sucker punch and be done with it!
Or next year, we could once again mark Labor Day as summer’s end. But 100-degree heat waves might bake us for two more months.
We’d be more confused than ever.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How do you handle summer’s supposed end?
Father, drought had caused our garden row of lettuce to falter, but You gifted us with this volunteer patch on our compost heap! Not exactly the biblical version of manna, but OMG, we fresh-lettuce-lovers will take it. Thank You!
Have you created a bucket list? I’ve considered it.
Instead, I recorded what I’ve done and would rather not repeat:
Other remembrances make me shiver. I never again want to:
Nor will I:
Finally, I won’t challenge anyone to a doughnut-eating contest. Ronnie, a street kid who attended my Bible club, claimed he could outeat anyone. I devoured twice as many. Humbled, Ronnie went home, sick. Humbled, I realized the Bible didn’t recommend this form of evangelism. I called Ronnie’s mother to apologize.
Silence. Then laughter. “Glad you called his bluff.”
Still, I couldn’t look a doughnut or bathroom scales in the face. God, either, but soon I realized He’d forgiven me and had taught Ronnie and me to engage brains before mouths.
God isn’t limited by clueless mistakes. Amazingly, the kid still attended Bible Club. Decades later, I pray doughnut disaster memories have faded. That Ronnie clearly recalls Jesus loves him.
In reviewing my once-but-never-again list, I realize God’s protected me big-time. I never fell off my shoes. I haven’t been abducted, joined the Ku Klux Klan, or worn French Tinkerbell clothes.
I now can look doughnuts in the face.
Scales? Still working on that.
And God’s bucket list for me.
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: What’s on your once-but-never-again list?
Merry Christmas! I’m the tree chosen by the Phillipses. I’m decorated and lookin’ good, if I do say so myself.
Though, I wasn’t always so full of holiday cheer. You wouldn’t be, either, if you’d hung around Lowe’s while everyone critiqued your figure and bald spots.
Still, we trees looked forward to seeing children — despite sibling arguments. Those mostly ended with the famous parental line, “We’re getting this tree because I said so.” Plus, hot chocolate bribes, which parents wanted anyway to medicate away seasonal frustrations.
While I missed kids when these seniors decorated me, I’d heard horror stories about toddlers scaling tree trunks. However, older people own nosy cats and dogs that would over-hydrate me. Or would these seemingly normal Midwesterners allow a pet boa constrictor to wind around my branches?
Like I said, I’d heard stories. But saw no animals, not even goldfish.
I like life by their picture window. None of my fellow fauna outside are bedecked with colorful lights and ornaments of every size, shape and hue like me. I love being a Christmas tree — even if the lady piles too much tinsel in the wrong places. She doesn’t like looking fat around the bottom. Why should I?
My owners bring coffee, tea and Bibles. Together, we worship our Creator, who gave Himself at Christmas. They pray for their family — 17 strong, who’ll arrive soon.
I can’t wait to see the grandkids’ shining eyes.
Their parents will breathe in my fragrance and memories. A miniature needlepoint mailbox holds a note in their great-grandmother’s handwriting. The figure wearing a serape was brought back from Spain. A one-of-a-kind collection of ornaments made of plastic lids, crayon-scribbled Nativity scenes and spray-painted macaroni reminds these grown-ups they can be children today.
If they spoke conifer, they could ask me what’s inside those packages. We Christmas trees eavesdrop, you know. We also could tattle on who’s shaking gifts, but why spoil the fun?
It’s a great gig. I work only a few weeks of the year. Afterward, I’ll stay in the garden, covered with food for hungry critters.
A short life. But if I live and give more joy in a few weeks than some people do in a lifetime — who’s complaining?
Your Extraordinary Ordinary: If your tree could talk, what would it say?
O Lord, You know we love camping in Your wild, beautiful world. But this year, a gnat plague of biblical (Exodus 8:16-19) proportions swarmed us the entire trip. After we returned home, Hubby even sorted piles of dirty laundry in his truck’s bed, rather than let the pests infest our house. OMG, Pharaoh wouldn’t listen to You, but we want to know: was it something we said?
This prayer was originally published on August 22, 2016.
