FLYING TWEETS AND TWITTERS

When I married and moved to a small central Washington town, mornings just got better. In Portland, greater Los Angeles and Chicago, I woke to the roar of traffic. Now, the twitters and tweets of birds come through the open window. It’s so peaceful and a poignant reminder that the same Creator God who made things that fly also made me, and has never gone out of business!

I’m not famous as a “morning person.” Like a diesel engine, I need time to warm up, and more so as I age.  My morning routine now includes a heat pad on a painful knee. But my new “normal” is okay. “Wake up and be awesome,” urges one of the signs I liked. Sometimes upon wakening, I pull on old concerns like a ratty old robe. I’m prone to identify with King David in Psalm 5. There he rehearses how mean and demeaning people have made his life miserable. But there’s a golden verse toward the beginning:
Listen to my cry for help, my King and my God, for to you I pray.
Morning by morning, O LORD, you hear my voice; morning by morning I lay my requests before you and wait in expectation. (Psalm 5:2-3)

One of my morning habits is making the bed before starting on the day’s duties. It’s like closing the night chapter and opening the day chapter for whatever God has ahead. No matter what yesterday brought, this is a new day. David also wrote:
Weeping may remain for a night, But rejoicing comes in the morning. (Psalm 30:5)
Then, as part of morning devotions (besides reading the Bible), I often pick up a hymnal kept next to my devotional "spot." Dozens are part of my spiritual heritage, their tunes easily recalled, and their words uplifting with praise and Biblical truth. Godly men and women who condensed spiritual lessons to rhyme continue to speak.

Fortified by song and God’s Word, I’m ready to add my voice to the day, remembering another psalm:
This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:24)
When I look in the mirror and acknowledge the aging process, I also remember that God created me for more than this earth. But for now, the morning tweets and twitters (which have nothing to do with the cyberworld) outside my window declare that I can wake up and be awesome—in God’s sight.