This Thing Life, A Prayer

This thing here, my life, what You've done to it, it is pretty much amazing. I know I wrote the other night (the blog below) that it all feels the same. Well, I am here, this morning and I know that it isn't the same. These mornings with You, in the car, out here in land, watching the sun rise with You, these are not the same. These are momements I never used to take, or pay attention to. I never knew how important and amazing and healing they could be. I never knew how to spend time with You. And I do now. My life is different, and I am different.

Things feel the same when I get depressed sometimes out of spoiledness; the topics of depression are the same: Life's not good enough, I'm not healthy enough, enough of enough! because my life, Lord, is definitely not the same. This thing, it is somethhing else than it was; I am different, and I am alive. Phsyically, and spiritually, alive.

I am alive because of You, for different reasons and from different times: from birth and when the Devil was pulling a Job on me. You must have told him as You have told him many times before, that he could do what he wanted to me, he just couldn't kill me. And he came kinda close, closer than most, but You knew, when none of us did, that Your purpose was to keep me alive. To teach me how to live.

I am alive because of You. Because You wanted, want, me to be. And you came here and changed this life. You disciplined my life, and you disciplined life into me. For that I thank You. For this thing, living, I thank you Lord. You didn't have to discipline me so I could learn how to live, but You did, because You love me!

And maybe it is less this thing life, and more this thing love. Maybe life is love and maybe love is life. Either way you think about it, it is mine, because You gave it to me. You gave it to me as a gift.

Somedays, ok most days, I forget to open it up, ripping off the paper in excitement, others I do that instinctively now. But I am hoping, and asking, and praying for You to help me remember to open this gift up with excitement and use it more and more every day. Help me live, and love, as it were, everyday.

You wrote me into Your story
You gave (give) me settings, characters, and plots that come and go.
And You kept (keep) me in this story, Your story, for Your purposes and end.
You give me endless chances at making the best choices,
The little ones and the apexes,
As I try to learn from the conflicts,
And as I am trying to write a story of mine that is pleasing to Yours, as mine lives in Yours I hopefully anticipate the glorious resolution.

Life feels the same, but it isn't. It is a gift and I know that now. And I am here to write a good story (Let Story Guide You, Donald Miller).