WORDS

WE RECENTLY

completed Advent, celebrated by Christians as a season of ‘preparation,’

Jesus has come.

Jesus is here now in our hearts.

Jesus is coming again.

In truth, not just Advent, but each year ‘prepares’ us for the year that is to follow. We keep building or rebuilding on past experiences, preparing for whatever may be ahead.

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THIS EARLY MORNING I AM PREPARING

to drop word-seeds onto the earthy soil of an iPad page, hoping and praying they will be fruitful. At first look they lay scattered about, random nouns, verbs, adjectives, pronouns, adverbs and more, all recognizable but meaningless. And so the task begins. Rearranging, deleting, searching for the right word, until finally a row of words comes together and an entire sentence appears. It is there at last, ready to be sown, like seed in a family garden or a farmer’s field. But it is not enough.

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I MUST FIRST WAIT

for the words in the sentence to die without being noticed, knowing they may never be seen by anyone. It is always this way unless rain from heaven falls on the page where the sentence is hid. Unless I nurture the soil around it, assuring the sentence it’s best chance to break out onto the surface of the page, a living thing, and be seen and read by the lovers of words and sentences. Fulfilling its raison d’être. Exploding with beauty for the eye and food for the soul. A miracle, yes, but still not enough.

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SOME WORDS

are pictures by themselves. Lion. Water. Mountain. Home. Some bring picture words to life. Giving. Running. Playing. Going. Others are connectors. And. The. A. This. Each word is important to a sentence. Some stand out, giving the sentence its purpose. Some act out, giving the sentence movement and life. And some go about quietly, almost unnoticed, linking words with other words, ensuring the true meaning of each sentence will be experienced. Sometimes pleasant to the taste. Sometimes times bitter and hard to take. At all times hopeful, healing, health-producing words in sentences. A miracle, yes, but there has to be more.

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IT TAKES A GROUP OF WORDS

that make complete sense to be a genuine sentence. And almost every sentence has a finite verb, a reminder of its bounds or limits. It can be a statement, question, exclamation or command. But it must make complete sense.

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Sometimes a single sentence is enough. Powerful. Stirring. Encouraging.

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Usually a sentence is at its best when linked with other sentences, creating a paragraph. Once one paragraph is seen and understood, other words begin finding their places on the page in other sentences and paragraphs, bringing a collection of words and sentences and paragraphs together and creating a cohesive chapter. When this chapter ties together with other chapters, the story that was meant to be in the beginning with the first word is complete.

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Like your life and mine in 2024.

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IN THIS NEW YEAR

think of each day being shaped as meaningful story, each minute a word, each hour a sentence, a paragraph comes together in the morning, another in the afternoon, still another at the day’s ending. Each day, each week, words sown in the earthy soil of life’s pages. Each month a chapter. And before you know it, the story of your life, 2024, is another book completed.

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What story do you hope to tell? What crises will you overcome? What adventures will you live you can’t wait to tell others about? What chapters will you pour over again at the year’s end, to relish and remember like pictures in an album? What words will be filled with beauty? What sentences will you labor over? What paragraphs will you laugh about? What chapters will nourish your soul?

“You heavens above, rain down my righteousness; let the clouds shower it down. Let the earth open wide, let salvation spring up, let righteousness flourish with it; I, the Lord, have created it.[1] As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater.[2]

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Land that drinks in the rain often falling on it and that produces a crop useful to those for whom it is farmed receives the blessing of God.[3]

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Chose your first 2024 word carefully. Nurture it prayerfully. And may all your paragraphs be rained on this year.

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May Jesus keep us close.

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[1] Isaiah 48:5

[2] Isaiah 55:10

[3] Hebrews 6:7