Monday morning

"Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with thanksgiving." — Colossians 4:2

I sat down at the kitchen table this morning and the prayer came back on its own.

I do not mean it had been gone. It had not been gone. But there are weeks when the prayer is carrying something heavy, when you sit down and the weight of the week sits down with you and the words are slow and difficult. And then there are mornings when you sit down and the words come the way water comes out of a faucet. You turn the handle and there it is.

This was a faucet morning. I sat down, and the coffee was still too hot to drink, and Biscuit was on the porch where he has been every morning this summer, and I opened my mouth and the prayer was there. Not a large prayer. Not the kind that shakes you. The kind that says thank you and means it.

I thanked the Lord for Monday. For the ordinary fact of Monday, which is laundry and the garden needing water and nothing requiring me to be anywhere but here. I thanked him for the cardinal at the feeder and for the fact that the cardinal does not know what week it is. The cardinal is not recovering from anything. The cardinal is eating sunflower seeds because it is morning and he is hungry.

There is something to be learned from this. I do not think the Lord requires us to carry every week into the next one. I think he sets a table for Monday and Monday is what is on it.

The coffee cooled enough to drink. Biscuit came in when I opened the screen door. Junebug was already on the kitchen counter, which she is not supposed to be, and she looked at me the way she does when she has been caught, which is to say she did not look caught at all.

I drank my coffee. I said the names on my list. I did not linger over any of them this morning, which is its own kind of mercy. Some mornings the list is work. This morning the list was gratitude.

Lord, thank you for Monday.

Ruby keeps a collection of prayers at her kitchen table. You can find them here.