Early Morning Prayer

I awoke early this morning and saw my husband off to work while it was still dark outside. Instead of turning on my little lamp in my "garden enclosed," I opened a window and sat in the dark with my Parisian Lights black tea warming my hands. It was a special time of just Him and me. No book was open on my lap; no music; not even any birds at this moment. Just the sound of a cicada yearning to free itself.

Somewhere in the process of just "being," I began to lift the names of those who had been brought to my attention lately -- those who needed or had asked for prayer. Debra and her mother ... Christi ... Ken ... Kathy .... Erin ... a little boy named Jay who has an inoperable brain tumor and his dad who is about to be deployed ... Dawn's mother ... Tonya ... Don ... Debbie ... Janice ... a particular couple ... Julie and Mike, and the list continued with an almost overwhelming length and need.

But as I sat there in the darkness, calling out names and pausing with each, I was reminded of something I asked the ladies in Bible study to do last week. As they sat around in their small groups, I had them share what their particular life-story was telling others about God. For example, one lady said that she hoped her life-story was reading, "God is faithful." But then a funny thing happened: other ladies at the table began sharing what THEY saw in way of God by that person's life. In other words, how the Lord was manifesting Himself through that woman. And without fail, every revealed characteristic of God resulted from a place where that person is being or had been broken. That every revelation proceeded from and was due to some type of hardship. How odd.

But you know, I'm so grateful I serve a God of redemption, and that He does not allow anything to come into our lives that cannot be redeemed for His glory. That He takes our mistakes, our losses, our sicknesses, our dysfunctions, our pain, yes, even our messes and turns them into something beautiful: bread by which a broken world can be fed. Indeed, it is in the breaking that we are given and that He is revealed.

So, yes, Lord. Come and minister to each of these whose names have been called out before Your throne this morning. Touch their source of need and answer as only You can. Do Your complete work. And in a way that is so far beyond our comprehension, shine Your everlasting light through their brokenness and reveal Your Son in and through their lives.

How appropriate that as I had finished my prayer, the room was no longer black and the earth was no longer silent. The sun had broken the darkness and the song of nature had begun. Praise the Son of Righteousness who awakens the dawn and rises with healing on His wings.

Just an ordinary moment...