As we shared our highs and lows in our Sunday School class, I was reminded of the many “highs” I experienced this past week. A small change in a child’s behavior, the opportunity to help a stranger, the encouraging email from a child, the sunshiny day to plant spring flowers … in the recounting of these specific blessings, gratitude welled up.
Weariness lends itself to gratitude … reminds me to cling to my Abba, Father. It reminds me that it is in him that I find strength and joy.
When God at first made man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by,
Let us (said He) pour on him all we can:
Let the world’s riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.
So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flowed, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone of all His treasure
Rest in the bottom lay.
For if I should (said He)
Bestow this jewel also on my creature,
He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature:
So both should losers be.
Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness:
Let him be rich and weary, that, at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast.
~ George Herbert
I love the poet’s image of the glass of blessings in God’s hands as he was forming the human race … There’s a phrase in a worship song … one we sang this morning … ” I’m blessed beyond the curse for his promise will endure and his joy’s gonna be my strength.”
