Gloria!

Today's a rainy day.  I'm tempted to think that it's gloomy, and that I'd rather just waste my time on Facebook reading (very) mildly entertaining articles.  Also, that I'm hungry and have run out of ideas for this blog.

But then I thought about each raindrop that is falling from the sky.  Each drop is a collection of water molecules that have likely circled the globe (or at least a wide swath of North America and the Atlantic).  Each drop can nourish plant life or us; each drop, if frozen, can dazzle with beauty and symmetry.  Each drop is a gift from God.

He makes the rain fall so that the environment which surrounds us is the most conducive one for the benefit for our souls.  He is giving me now hundreds of thousands of tiny gift-wrapped parcels of H20 in order to create and maintain this physical space which, in turn, allows me to become a better person.

Each drop is wisely placed, in both time and location.  Each drop is carefully measured, and given with the most profound care.

So also for everything else.  The air we breathe, the food we eat, even the electrical impulses which course through our synapses, are all gifts from above.  Our luxuries, our trials, our leisure, our work; all come from Him.

Even our own efforts are marbled with His gifts.  I can type a blog post, but how much of that is really mine?  God gave me the Internet, this laptop, fingers, a working nervous system, a rudimentary amount of intelligence, the training to become literate, and a little bit of experience in writing.  He also gave me a commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy, and time on that Sabbath to think and to write.  Really, what do I own of this?

The only things that AREN'T a gift, the only things that we can claim as purely our own are our own choices.  And that agency, that ability to choose our path, was also once a gift.

So let's choose wisely.  Let's look for the beauty and the blessings of a gloomy afternoon.  Let's see what God would have us see rather than be content with the inane ramblings of Babble-on.  Most of all, let's praise God, not just in word and in song, but in our hearts.  Because he's giving us hundreds of thousands of presents right now, even if it doesn't seem like it.