Come, Lord Jesus

These past couple weeks have been a blur of child sickness, Gabriel's birthday, more child sickness, (different child, longer and more parent-attention- needed sickness), and now preparing to host Thanksgiving and a birthday party. All at the same time I'm also trying to balance work that itself is feeling like a balancing act between hope and despair - between the work of a spiritual guide and a small-business administrator.

So, as I sit pre-dawn trying to unscramble my thoughts about Advent 1 - about what the Lord's coming means - I realize that the place I've seen God most recently (other than in love shared in family), has been the opportunity to preach, to study texts a little and be forced to come up with something that has truth, hope, reality and love - and to do so almost every week. Sometimes the entire process is so hard - but at other times, I'm energized by the thoughts that come into my head. The sermon preparation itself feels like a conversation with God as I wrestle through what certain things are saying and how they apply to our world as we know it and the world that we believe will yet be.

This morning, my prayer of Come, Lord Jesus, isn't a table prayer prior to eating, but a desk prayer as I write and ponder.