My faith journey goes way back to when I was a little girl. I remember almost every verse of so many of the old hymns that we would sing. Those were the days when we still used a hymnal and we sang those old songs that were birthed out of hardships, losses and illnesses. One of my favorites was “Great is Thy Faithfulness”. There’s a line that continues to describe my life as each new day brings new hope AND new concerns about this and that, and how will this and that turn out? The line that resonates within me as sweet assurance comes for this day and tomorrow is: “Morning by morning new mercies I see . . .”
I was thinking about that line yesterday. I woke up, headed straight to my closet, stepped on and off my scale! “YAY! I’m down a pound. I’ll go to Weight Watchers (my monthly weigh-in that keeps me accountable to healthy living and weight control)!” Most mornings when I wake up, after the bathroom call, I head to my office to post my FB message and blog and then send a text message of love to my children. My post and loving on my children already has me thinking about Christ’s mercies and faithfulness, but very quickly after that, I’m already going through my “To-Do” list.
“I must find someone to repair my sprinkler system. Why is that fingernail healing so slowly? I must go to the grocery store. I must pay my bills. I must get my blog ready for tomorrow. I must google Youtube videos to figure out how to install that water filter. I must get the garage cleaned out. I must get gas today. I must finish editing my daughter’s manuscript for her new book. I must. I must. I must.
Oh, I know my little list cannot be compared to you mamas who are overloaded with "To-Do's" -- car pools, school lunches, laundry, businesses to run, and on and on. I think we can all relate that our mornings don’t involve a list of God’s mercies as much as they involve a list of our own concerns. I’m sure we can all boast about how good we’ve become at checking off our “To-Do” list.
But, then, in a sweet moment, that old hymn rolls around in my head and, instead of obsessing over all the “To Do’s”, I start to hum the tune I’ve known since childhood. And it reminds me of the God who has loved me since long before that.
“Great is Thy faithfulness! Great is Thy faithfulness!
Morning by morning new mercies I see;
All I have needed Thy hand hath provided —
Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me!"
That “All I have needed” part is what makes me stop. I come to a complete standstill. Right there in the middle of my kitchen in front of my host of vitamins I NEED to take and I think….. “Do I really believe that? "All I have needed Thy hand hath provided." Do I live like I really believe that?”
His faithfulness is new every morning in a hundred different ways. In the stormy and sunshiny days and in the hectic and calm days. It’s the one thing that doesn’t change. I desperately want to become an expert at believing that…..don’t you?
