Monday Morning Offering - 44

Image: George Mendoza

Good morning, good God!

It was too hot yesterday for an April day
and plenty warm enough to remind me, Lord,
that your heat draws forth life
from the earth and the branch
and that without your warmth
trees will not blossom,
the summer will not come,
the ground will not offer itself
as a bed for geraniums and tomatoes...

As if over night, Lord,
your warm touch budded flowering trees and teased
my longing for those too-short weeks
when branches are laced with blossoms:
a coming of unexpected beauty,
bare limbs suddenly overdressed
in unplanned delicacy,
finery to take one's breath away...

As wintered earth waking,
watered by spring rains:
make of my soul an orchard of flowering trees;
seed my heart with flowers wild and rare;
make of my life a bed for harvests rooted,
ripe and running over with your sweet juice,
your spirit in my veins...


Take my winter-wearied self,
and warm me to your grace:
draw forth from me what none,
least I,
might think could ever spring
from these deadened limbs,
this sluggish heart,
this spent spirit...





Work your miracle of spring
within me, Lord,
and bring out in me
the beauty, the strength you always see,
the glory I fail to find,
the self you made me to be...

For this I offer you the ground of my being,
the garden of my mind and the soil of my heart...

Let me bask in the warmth of those around me, Lord,
and let my shade be for them a place of peace
and shelter from their storms...

Bring forth what you will from the fields of my days, Lord:
warm me to your presence
and let your face shine upon me...

Amen.

-ConcordPastor