In my worn journal I look back until I find it — Number 245. I’m frantic to find it, it seems crucial to the day.
It’s written in slightly messy, black cursive, as if the writer was in a hurry. The journal is 39 pages of thanks — my first foray into giving thanks in a concrete way, a way where I can look back.
Number 245 is squeezed between ‘Les Miserables – stories of grace’, and ‘rental cars’, as if an afterthought. But it’s there as I knew it would be.
The words are ‘Monday Mornings’ and then in brackets beside the words ‘knowing I can’t do it on my own’. And it’s true. I can’t. What is true every day, that I can’t do this alone, comes with a force on Monday.
It’s as though God is whispering to me, urging me to remember. Urging me to remember that it is He who redeems Mondays, who takes me from Sunday’s rest through Monday’s unknown, who reminds me I can’t do this on my own. The words of author Ann Voskamp, challenged to speak words of gratitude through her pen, through keeping a journal that resulted in the book One Thousand Gifts, resonate:
“That which I refuse to give thanks for, I refuse to believe Christ can redeem”
So I thank God for number 245 in my list of One Thousand Gifts: Monday Mornings (knowing I can’t do it on my own).
“But, first, remember, remember, remember the signs. Say them to yourself when you wake in the morning and when you lie down at night, and when you wake in the middle of the night. And whatever strange things may happen to you, let nothing turn your mind from following the signs. And secondly, I give you a warning. Here on the mountain I have spoken to you clearly: I will not often do so down in Narnia. Here on the mountain, the air is clear and your mind is clear; as you drop down into Narnia, the air will thicken. Take great care that it does not confuse your mind. And the signs which you have learned here will not look at all as you expect them to look, when you meet them there. That is why it is so important to know them by heart and pay no attention to appearances. Remember the signs and believe the signs. Nothing else matters.” Aslan to Jill in The Silver Chair
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