A Morning Like This

It's one of those mornings. 

Mist hangs wispy and low over the water. Our little bay is quiet in that breath-snatching way only the absence of human made noise can be. A very large turtle pokes his head through the glass-like surface and eyeballs me in long consideration before silently disappearing again.  A river otter swims into the marsh only to skirt across the rocks at water's edge moments later.   Birds and bullfrogs and the jenny wrens and a pair of cranky red squirrels add their voices as if to tell the forest that it's time to wake up. 

It's 5:30. 

I am often teased about my early rising.   People say that not even God is up at this "ungodly" hour.  But this chorus of quiet praise convinces me otherwise. 

Today is the last of four days alone.   Tonight Ken will arrive and I will come down to the dock to greet the man about whom I am increasingly in awe that I call my husband.   Two days later the first boat load of grandkids will arrive and a few days after that, another.   I am blessed and blessed beyond my imaginings. 

But it will be good in a different way  than these first alone days. 

The solitude grants me the great gift of self-observation.  The time not talking, of listening deeply, to my own heart through the reading of last year's journal, to His heart through the reading of His Word, and the meditations on both, just sitting quietly in a morning like this, provides me with an off to the side seat from which the daily interactions of my life can be more thoroughly inspected.

Free from the responsibilities of my life for just a little while, I can ponder the character defects and wounds and sins for which I am responsible.   And in the absence of human made noise, I can also hear more clearly the Voice of grace and love and encouragement that I find I need so badly. 

It also fills the depleted spaces of my soul.  I feel that physically.

So this holy morning invites me to be alert and patient and still in these last hours of solitude.  To revel in the morning sunshine, and celebrate the process of my becoming.  To drink in the energy.  To feed my chipmunk friends and drink my tea. 

Because it's one of those mornings. 

Sent from my Samsung device