Familiar

I like familiar things. Like walking upstairs and knowing exactly how many steps and where the bannister turns. I like teaching for the light switch and hit it the first time. I like putting things away right so that when someone asks me where it is I can tell them to the inch.. and I like sitting down with my blue book, my pink journal and my first Bible. I prefer the NIV upstairs but it has October anymore and it’s well, upstairs. I am sitting at the table watching the solar bobble heads bounce back and forth and spending time with My familiar books, some walnuts and chez mix, grapes and God. Daily praise time, confession and pthanksgiving and a focus on what is God asking of me this week, and thinking. I believe the new word is meditation but I choose to think. Last night cowboy church was one of the very best ones. Playing games with friend, coming home and going to bed under an electric blanket all those little things to be thankful for. Familiar places and things keep us grounded. The psalms 92 verse, “It is good to give thanks to the Lord to sing praises to your name most high.” Yes, and amen. And in those familiar books I write things.. phrases that remind me that God has more planned for my life than I can imagine: right now anyway . Praying for my body to quit acting odd and my heart to embrace today. Praying for my friends who are climbing the ladders in life and for those who are desperately attempting to get up the first rung. Rejoicing with those who are happy; that can be a hard one. I love it when I can rejoice but sometimes there is a sting of, ” wish I could rejoice with that in my life.”

And here I sit with the familiar. The Bible grandma gave me in 1983 for my birthday… 35 years later it means so much more to me than it did then. It’s much more personal. I was it now. I live it in real time and grasp the hope it gives me. The old familiar… last night we sang some of the old familiar. They mean something the way we sing them. The new sound says take an old hymn and redo it so few recognize it’s an oldie. Sometimes just leave the old familiar, old and familiar as let God speak through them….