Tag Archives: God

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Beautiful God Loves the Odd

Jesus, our pear tree seems out of sync with most flowering trees. Every spring, it insists on producing scrawny, green leaves first and luxuriant flowers later. ??? OMG, I’m so thankful that when I, too, get life backwards, You still help me bloom.   

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: True Dedication

Jesus, thank You for brave pastors who preach to cranky congregations the day we spring forward. Because, OMG, if I were a minister, I’d be tempted to refuse until every member had consumed at least two espressos and a giant jelly doughnut.

Image by Günter from Pixabay.

Image by Wikimedia Images from Pixabay.

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Um, This Isn’t the Life

O Lord, shouldn’t games teach life skills? Yet “Life” not only teaches kids that having babies is as simple as adding a peg to a car. Also, they will receive wads of cash by twirling a spinner. OMG, if that’s real life, did I buy the wrong version?

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Birthday Leap Delayed

O Jesus, while Einstein might disagree, my March birthday charges toward me at the speed of light. OMG, thank You for Leap Year, when one more day in February delays its arrival!

If I’d been born a year earlier, I might be celebrating my 18th birthday this year!

An Ordinary Drive

Image by RitaE from Pixabay.

My husband and I often drive to Ohio to care for his elderly father.

Not like traveling along California’s coastline, with its infinite, sparkling waves. Not like coaxing our car up Appalachian heights, where scary curves rival breathless beauty.

A between-snows drive on Midwestern highways doesn’t raise pulse rates — unless a semi crosses the line.

Or if we focus on a sunrise. Pastel hues stripe the gray horizon, then amid sherbet-colored clouds, the butter-cake sun shines on dark chocolate fields —

Image by Pexels from Pixabay.

Sorry. I’m driving under the influence of a post-Christmas diet. But the delicious scene raises my pulse rate. Maybe a bakery lurks nearby?

Hubby points. “The sun’s position has changed considerably since the fall equinox.” As he continues enthusiastic commentary on light angles, his pulse rate probably rises to new heights.

Mine doesn’t. Until he mentions ancient tribes who built mounds in the Anderson, Indiana, area. They marked seasons by studying scenes like this.

That’s how those Native Americans survived without phones?

My fascination with human behavior — Hubby calls it nosiness — quickly spreads to houses we pass.

I indicate a typical Indiana farmhouse. “Do they like strawberry or grape PBJ? Whatever, I’ll bet it’s homemade.”

Image by Stephen Marc from Pixabay.

Hubby’s look silences my mouth, but not my mind.

Yards that sport tired-looking Santas warm my heart. Someone’s farther behind than I. Others boast shining windows and perfectly sculpted bushes. Even their snowdrifts appear symmetrical. How do people live that way?

Pristine Amish homes grab me, though, with their simplicity and clotheslines full of black shirts and dresses dancing wildly in winter wind.

Slowing for buggies lets us enjoy trotting horses and large families snuggled like birds in a nest. However, rumspringa Amish teens skating down the middle of the highway don’t generate warm fuzzies.

Later, after a day of hugs, time with Dad and conversations with health care workers, we say bittersweet goodbyes. Hubby and I could drive the route home in our sleep, but watch each other closely so we don’t.

Against the sunset’s fiery rose, orange and purples, steeples along the way reach for Heaven. My thoughts do too.

Glory to God in the highest.

One more extraordinary ordinary drive.

Image by adonisbluemusic from Pixabay.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Describe your latest amazing, everyday drive.

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Who’s In Charge Here?

Jesus, thank You for presidents who, while far from perfect, have served our country in more ways than we can imagine.

Washington image by OpenClipart Vectors from Pixabay. Lincoln image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay.

But, OMG, contemplating this year’s election, I’m glad You are King!

Image by Raca C. from Pixabay.

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: It Could Be Worse

Dear Lord, while other grandparents inherit grand-dogs and grand-cats, it’s taken some time for me to adjust to grand-rats. But You have taught me to share our grandsons’ pleasure in petting and even holding the little creatures.

After all, OMG, they could have chosen snakes and tarantulas.

Images l-r by Anktrish Kamar & Steve Buissinne from Pixabay.

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: Extreme Hot Chocolate!

Image by DC Williams from Pixabay

O Lord, splurging on this one steaming cup of hot chocolate, I never realized one Aztec king, Montezuma III, drank 50 — spiked with chili peppers — daily. OMG, even this chocaholic realizes a person can want too much of a good thing! 

Image by brian261 from Pixabay.

Image by noname_13 from Pixabay.

OMG, It’s Monday! Prayer: No Gripes Here, Lord

Jesus, You know I often struggle to assume an attitude of gratitude. But on this chilly, damp Monday, with one flush, I remembered my papaw’s outhouse.

Image by Dieter Scharnagl from Pixabay.

OMG, for cleaning two-and-a-half indoor baths, I am THANKFUL.

Image by congerdesign from Pixabay.

Help Is Not a Four-Letter Word

Do you like to ask for help? Me, neither.

Even then, I thought I knew it all.

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.

Image by Natalia Lavrinenko from Pixabay.

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?

Image by reenablack from Pixabay.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Where does your help come from?