Bless-Start a Better Day

Did his matching ring glint in the winter dawn as the well-dressed man bent over the bedside?  Swaddled under a Sherpa comforter, her eyelids fast shut she felt his fingertips tap her conscious. These were the fingers that reached for her seven hours before, fingers with knuckles swollen by the years, yet strong as the day decades ago when she easily slid on his ring. 

He whispered a blessing for a better day.

An hour later the Timex radio nudged her up in praise song after praise song, until a vocal, “Oh-O-O-O-oh” had her palm shush the radio still. She reached for a small book her spiritual twin pal gave her last year, Jesus Calling® Enjoying Peace in His Presence.

Three days before Sarah Young’s book offered this devotional ponder for her: “Try to view each day as an adventure, carefully planned out by your Guide.”

Yesterday was indeed an adventure. She woke up earlier to meditate on the Word. She got the kids off on errands, work, volunteering, while she cleaned up the house and then sweated her 2014 resolution in praise moves to praise songs.

Her van still in the auto body shop due to a sharp right turn shimmy with a brick mailbox, she borrowed her Maria’s bucket of bolts car. God directed her to pause at church, where she met the music director and lingered to listen to a dear chair-bound soul in Christmas red, knit slipper socks.

Returning home with a year of Bounty paper rolls, she could have slipped into her late afternoon fret over what to cook for family dinner. Instead, she chopped ham to assemble an Alfredo rainbow tortellini. That night the family joined Buddy, now 25 going on second grade, in his joy dance to the opening credits NCIS theme.

Yesterday ended too late to bed for this wife and husband, when thieves come into to steal, yes rob, the mind’s thoughts of the day’s adventurous splendors, and leave behind daggers of doubt, pride, frustration.

Thank God for his pardoning grace and cleansing mercy.

This day’s Jesus Calling® devotion remarks, “You are surrounded by a sea of problems, but you are face-to Face with Me, Your Peace. As long as you focus on Me, you are safe.”

Here is a quote to bless-start and focus a new daily adventure, a new day, indeed, an even better day.

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, 

will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” 

Paul’s letter to the Philippians 4:7, ESV