early spring, a pause and a song

 Often in the morning I choose to wake the kids up with music.  They have little amazon speakers in their rooms so I can quietly and gently ask the music to start to play so that they can wake up in the dark to something beautiful summoning them into the day.  Those mornings often go the best in our home, as opposed to the ones where a child wakes up first and starts banging around and wakes everyone else up in a more hostile manner.  Those mornings don't go so well.  This morning we had a bit of both....extra kredit awake before me, being too loud, but me able to get into Precious' room and get music going before she got super mad about the noise outside her door......

We had a brief, hard rain pass by at the time I was rousing her from her sleep....and I said a quiet prayer.  Please, please, Lord, can you make the rain stop just long enough for the kids to get to the bus stop and on the bus?  Standing in the cold rain waiting for the bus has to be one of the worst things for a child. 

I was thinking about the weather today and looking for coats, and boots and gloves again after the last few days of sunshine and really warm temps.  It's so hard to go back to cold, dark and rainy today....Yesterday was easy to be in a good mood, to feel grateful and hopeful, to praise God for the promise of spring and the beauty of nature.  I could praise Him as I enjoyed the birds singing outside and the voices of kids playing in the neighborhood and basketballs dribbling on driveways....I could praise Him because we survived another winter and warmer days were here.  It would have been easy to feel less praise and worship-minded this morning for sure, except that this song was playing in Precious' room as she was getting ready and I paused to listen to the words......and therein is the praise.  I found it in the pause.  

The song is called A Thousand More by Thrive Worship.  The words are simple, beautiful, and completely unto the Lord, seeing how mighty and majestic and worthy He is, and how we can spend a thousand days, words, lives trying to describe and understand His love....and never see the end of grace.  One line says "I could live a thousand lives and never see the end of grace."  so much grace.  I've listened to it over and over already this morning and it's not yet 8:30am.  I feel the presence of God in it, in me, in my home today.  It is cold and dark but it is also peaceful and still......and I am choosing to pause here for a bit today.  

We have been in a hard, hard season.  I know the hard will pass and get easier.  The tide of living our lives always ebbs and flows, rises and falls.....and sometimes it feels hard and sometimes it doesn't.  It is important to me to praise and worship, to pause and linger, to know and be known by the mighty Creator God in the hard days and in the sunny, warm and easier ones.  I am grateful to the writer of the song A Thousand More for giving me so much this morning....and I am grateful to God for one more day to try to fathom the length and hight and depth of His love and grace. 

The rain did stop before the kids headed out to the bus.  With everyone safely settled into their school and work spots I am giving myself permission to stretch this pause as long as possible today and just be alert and tuned in to any more gifts the Lord has planned for me today.