Made Alive

I tiptoe down the stairs as our home is cloaked in darkness.  Fumbling for the kitchen light, I make a scalding cup of coffee and rub my eyes.  It’s a new morning and I am made alive. 

These are my favorite kind of days.  Waking up before the kids, sneaking down for perspective; a dawn wakened with promise.  I can’t sleep any longer, mostly because I am too excited to begin a brand new day.  Most mornings look like covers pulled over my head; this one has hope written all over it.

Some people draw energy and life from being around others.  Regrettably, I am not one of those people.  I draw my strength from the silence, from being alone, from listening to God’s word quiet my own endless talking.  Those who know me best know this much about me.  I am a talker.  I need desperately to listen. 

I find my usual spot on the worn out floor, legs crossed as a pretzel, and open what is life to me. 

I read that wisdom lives in homes, built pillar by pillar.  It bestows wealth on those who love it.  Wisdom makes treasuries abundant.  Rooms within are filled with rare and beautiful riches.  Riches like kindness and laughter and sacrifice and knowledge live here.  I want a home out of a Pottery Barn catalogue.  I need the kind of home that looks like wisdom.

I read about life and death and hostility destroyed with the cross.   I love that God loves without condition or premise.  He gives peace to those who are near and peace to those who are far.  Grace holds no regard for where it finds you.  We have all been without God and without hope in this world.  Yet He welcomes us with joy and peace and arms that take us off the floor to dance.

I read about the complacency of fools and it strikes a nerve.  Their complacency is their destruction.  Lacking wisdom, they find contentment in lesser things.  This American life has arrested them, unaware.  I realize that I am complacent about most everything that does not directly affect me.  The command to love my neighbor as myself mostly stops short at loving me. 

Almost done with my coffee now, I close the Bible and feel as though parts of me are dying, as they should.  This is certainly not what I intended to compliment the energy of the morning.  But this morning was never supposed to be about me anyway.  This morning, this afternoon, this evening is about Him.  Christ in me, the hope of glory. 

In each little death, I am made more alive; alive to Life itself.  I think I just may be able to tackle this day with these words of life to me.  Well, these words and maybe another cup of coffee.