The Blessing of Ordinary Days

It was time for me to begin my day … but I took one last deep breath and drank in the joys of my common life.

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I always look forward to my steaming cup of coffee in the morning … laced with just a wee bit of almond milk.

The taste is robust … yet gentle.

Invigorating … yet soothing.

What is it about me and coffee in the early hours of a dawning day?

My coffee tasted especially good this morning … warm and comforting … like an old friend had come to visit.

I always strategically choose a mug for each morning … because mugs matter.

Generally … my mugs are seasonal.

Today’s mug was a bright orange one with the word “Blessed” written across it in lovely script.

Yes … that’s how I felt. I felt blessed this morning.

“It is the blessing of the Lord that makes rich, and He adds no sorrow to it.” – Proverbs 10:22

I sat at the kitchen table that had welcomed my family for over 40 years … and looked out my back window across the Oklahoma field that is now my home … the dew was sparkling like expensive jewels on the early morning grass.

A bit of fog was slowly lifting its cloudy head and was wiping sleep away from the golden meadow.

I thought how peculiar it is that sparkling diamonds and oppressive weeds can co-exist in one lovely view.

Isn’t life like that?

Beauty and pain are arranged together and become the glorious and unmatched bouquet of life.

I like to call that particular bouquet of beauty and pain … “the place where joy and sorrow meet.”

When an ordinary person is audacious enough to mix even a whisper of joy into a bucket of sorrow … a miracle happens in that place.

Life is restored and hope is renewed where joy and sorrow meet.

“I will turn their sorrow into joy.” – Jeremiah 31:13

I have heard it said that “joy is not the absence of trouble but it is the presence of God.”

Perhaps that is what made my morning so intense … so pure … so filled with grace.

It must have been the presence of God lingering along the edges of the little life that is mine.

My morning continued …

The sun was about to make its spectacular appearance so I gave myself the pleasure of sitting and watching the fingerprint of God paint the view that belonged to me on this delicious day.

I have a small … but so loved … patio.

I thrive on fresh air and sunshine so my patio is not a mere patio … but it is a healing room … a counseling center … and a sanctuary all in one rectangle of cement.

Make no mistake about it … when you walk out on my patio you are not walking on cement but you are walking on holy ground.

A sacred space of intimate communion with the Father. How He loves to meet me there!

“The earth is the Lord’s and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it.” – Psalm 24:1

My gaze rested upon the football that was left on my patio yesterday by a grandson.

That spheroid – the football – that is filled with potential energy was innocently resting beside a small mum that is trying valiantly to bloom but having a hard time of it.

The football would remain inert until my grandson arrives on the scene again.

The mum needs more water and more time. Only God knows if it will bloom or not.

I hope that the tiny mum has the resolve to bloom brilliantly. I hope.

“The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of the Lord abides forever.” -Isaiah 40:8

It was time for me to begin my day … but I took one last deep breath and drank in the joys of my common life.

The dryer was whispering … the dishwasher humming … and I heard the children outside waiting for their school bus.

I made a mental list of all that I would accomplish this one day … this day that will inevitably lose its individuality as time roars on.

Will this day become an obscure 24-hour period of dishes … food … phone calls … appointments … dust … weather … and humdrum that so many other days have crowded into?

Would this one day become unidentifiably simple because it was plain? Because it was not circled on my calendar?

But to me this day and all it represented was dear … inexpressibly dear.

To me … it was a morning that sang of common delights … and simple disciplines … and the memorable mundane.

It was all so especially dear to me this morning … so sweetly poignant.

I deeply loved each forgettable moment.

I was drinking in all of the magnificence of a small life … of the ordinariness that so many ache for.

As I placed my mug in the sink …and took one last fleeting glance at the heaven in my back yard … my phone lit up with a text message.

One of my dear friends, Edie, stepped from time into eternity this morning.

I sat down once more … and remembered her laugh … the sparkle in her eyes … the family that she had raised.

I wonder what her morning consisted of … I wonder how different her morning was from mine.

 

 

This is an updated edition of a post originally published on Carol McLeod Ministries

Featured Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay

 

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About the Author

Carol McLeod is a best-selling author and popular speaker at women’s conferences and retreats, where she teaches the Word of God with great joy and enthusiasm. Carol encourages and empowers women with passionate and practical biblical messages mixed with her own special brand of hope and humor. Carol is a prolific author and loves digging for truth in the Word of God. Carol writes a weekly blog, “Joy For the Journey,” that has been named in the Top 50 Faith Blogs for Women. Carol also writes a weekly column for “Ministry Today.” Carol has been married to her college sweetheart, Craig, for 41 years and is the mother of five children in heaven and five children on earth. Graduates of Oral Roberts University, Craig and Carol have spent the past 38 years pastoring churches across America.